Four have been confirmed dead and up to 100 are still trapped in the 21-storey building that collapsed this evening at Ikoyi, Lagos.
It took a while for the rescue team to arrive at the scene of the incident and efforts are currently been made to retrieve people that are still trapped in the building.
The Lagos state government has ordered an immediate investigation into the cause of the collapse. Although, speculations are flying around that the building construction wasn’t following due process.
The owner might be trapped in the building
A witness to the Ikoyi building collapse has said the owner of the skyscraper is trapped with the other victims.
The number of those trapped in the collapsed building situated on Gerard Road, Ikoyi is yet to be confirmed.
The witness, who identified himself as Morris Ashiru to journalists, said he and some of his friends, came to work at the construction site.
He said the owner of the building, alongside a lot of people, were still trapped in the ruins of the collapsed skyscraper.
He said, “Everybody was working. A lot of people came here from Abuja,”
“The owner of the building is inside. He brought some clients to inspect the building.”
Since the incident happened at about 2 pm, the Deputy Governor of Lagos State, Dr Obafemi Hamzat and the Commissioner of Police, Lagos State, Hakeem Odumosu have done an on the spot assessment.
Original contractors withdrew services before the collapse
A letter has shown that Prowess Engineering Limited, the company that began the construction of the building which collapsed in Ikoyi, Lagos on Monday withdrew from the project in February 2020.
The company withdrew its services on grounds that it no longer shared the same vision with its client believed to be Fourscore Heights Limited as addressed in the letter.
Prowess Engineering Limited, which had constructed two other buildings for its client, said it couldn’t guarantee the integrity of the third (collapsed building) from anything above the fourth floor.
The letter titled, ‘Re: Proposed Gerrard Terraces For Fourscore Limited,’ was signed by the company’s managing director, Muritala Olawale who confirmed its veracity to our Correspondent.
It read, “This letter is to formally inform you of the withdraw of our structural consultancy service from the above named project. We arrived at this decision due to the fact that we no longer share the same vision with you as our client in terms of how the project is being executed.
“We can guarantee the integrity of the first two buildings and also work done up to the fourth floor of the third building supervised by us provided specifications have been met in terms of the required concrete strength. This we do not have control over as we do not have the concrete cube test results of each stage of the building till date. Also, note that we are not taking responsibility for any other construction errors that may have occurred overtime on the project.
“Furthermore, we request that our company’s name and logo be removed from the project board and also kindly notify all necessary approving authorities of our withdrawal from the project.
“We regret this decision and the lost opportunity to do business together. We look forward to future cooperation in other projects.”
