Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State has suspended the head of the State’s Building Control Agency over the collapse of a 21-story building in Ikoyi on Monday.
This was contained in a statement issued last Tuesday by Gbenga Omotoso, the Commissioner for Information and Strategy.
This comes as the death toll from building collapse has reached 14, with nine survivors rescued so far. More people are still believed to be trapped under the rubble.
“Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has said the government will surely find out what went wrong and punish those indicted. The Governor, as a first step, has directed that the General Manager of the Lagos State Building Control Agency (LASBCA), Mr. Gbolahan Oki, an architect, be suspended from work immediately. The suspension is indefinite,” the statement said.
It said the governor was also setting up a probe panel on the collapse, with members to be drawn from the Nigeria Institute of Architects (NIA), Nigerian Institute of Town Planners (NITP), Nigeria Society of Engineers (NSE), and other professional bodies.
He said the panel will independently investigate the remote and immediate causes of the incident and make recommendations on how to prevent future occurrences. The investigation is not part of the internal probe already being conducted by the government.
