•Death toll now 38, as 32 registered missing family members
Trust Africa News, By Ayomide Otitoju
Lagos State Government on Friday said dead bodies recovered from the Ikoyi collapsed building are ready for identification and therefore called on families of the deceased to go to the Infectious Disease Hospital (IDH) Yaba for identification of the corpses of their loved ones.
The State Government said 38 bodies have been recovered so far from the collapsed building as rescue operation entered Day Four on Friday, while family members had submitted 32 names of those still missing.
Lagos State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Gbenga Omotoso, while giving an update to the press, said the bodies would be ready for identification from 4pm on Friday at the IDH, Yaba.
Omotoso, who addressed the press conference in the company of the Commissioner for Special Duties and Intergovernmental Relations, Mr. Tayo Bamgbose-Martins and Physical Planning and Urban Development, Dr. Idris Salako, said an autopsy would be carried out on the corpses before releasing them to their families.
He said the autopsy is important because the law says that whenever there is death as a result of such incidents like the collapsed building, an autopsy must be done before the body is released.
The Commissioner also debunked reports that the rescue operation team at the collapsed building stopped the search and rescue work on Thursday.
He said work was still ongoing and would continue until the government could account for everybody inside the building at time of collapse and certify that nobody is left behind in the collapsed building.
He said: “So far now, we have recorded 38 dead bodies. And as you know, we have nine survivors. Some bodies are ready for identification. So, people can go to IDH, Yaba as from 4pm to identify the bodies of their loved ones.
“For bodies that may be very difficult to identify, we are going to be conducting DNA tests for such bodies to be identified. There are rules for giving bodies to people.
“There are some of the bodies that are in a state that it would be unprofessional for the hospitals to allow people to look at them in that present state and for them to be released the way they are. That is why we have the little delay that we are having. But if you go to IDH, Yaba from 4pm, you should be able to see some of the bodies and be able to identify who you want to identify.
“Yesterday, Mr. Governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu said one of the patients at the General Hospital was taken to LASUTH for a test and all that. The patient has been brought back to the hospital and he is said to be doing well. And all the patients who were there are doing well.”
The multi-sectoral search and rescue operation was ongoing at press time and the effort is being led by teams of Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA) and National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), with the support of construction giants, Julius Berger, Craneburg, HiTech and China Civil Engineering Construction Company (CCECC).
Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, on Thursday, inaugurated members of the investigation tribunal that will conduct an inquiry into the misconduct responsible for the collapse of a 21-storey structure on Gerrard Road in Ikoyi on Monday.
The Governor also signed the instrument legitimising the composition of the panel and empowering the tribunal to invite or summon anyone and organisation useful to the investigation.
Members of the tribunal, who are totally drawn from the private sector, took the oath at the event held in the LASWA Building at Falomo, Ikoyi. Their duty begins immediately and they are expected to report back within four weeks.
President of Nigeria Institute of Town Planners (NITP), Mr. Toyin Ayinde, is the chairman of the panel, while Ekundayo Onajobi, a lawyer in a private law firm, is the Secretary.
Other panel members are a structural engineer, Dr. Akintilo Idris Adeleke; an architect, Yinka Ogundairo; representative of Institute of Builders, Mr. Godfrey O. Godfrey, and Mrs. Bunmi Ibrahim, a real estate lawyer.
Sanwo-Olu, who described the event as a “sad one” for Lagos was visibly in a sombre mood during the inauguration.
The Governor said that the public deserved to know what went wrong. He stressed that the work of the panel would not bring back the lives lost, but added that it would help to prevent reoccurrence of such tragic events.
He said: “We are gathered here to perform a sad but necessary duty, which is the inauguration of a 6-member Panel of Inquiry into the collapse of the 21-storey building at Gerrard Road, Ikoyi, on Monday. It is a solemn moment for me personally, but this is an important assignment. Indeed, the generation coming after will not forgive us if we don’t do the right thing on this incident.
“The inauguration of this panel shows sincerely that the State Government is interested in unravelling and get to the root cause of what happened to the building, so that everyone concerned, including the Government, will learn from the very unfortunate incident. Lagosians and the world will be watching and waiting keenly, with the full expectation that the immediate and remote causes of this tragedy will be uncovered.”
Sanwo-Olu identified with distraught families of victims trapped under the collapsed structure, expressing the belief that the outcome of the investigation would assuage their pains and worries.
The oath taken by the tribunal members, the Governor said, empowers them with adequate privileges of Government powers to conduct independent investigation without fear, favour, interference and restrictions.
The Governor believed the tribunal members would bring their expertise and professionalism to bear in unravelling the infractions that brought down the building.
“What this tribunal will be doing over the course of the next few weeks will have important implications for building safety and for emergency response, not just in Lagos, but in the entire country. It will also go a long way towards ensuring that the families of the innocent victims of this avoidable tragedy experience some sort of closure and get justice,” Sanwo-Olu said.
Ayinde said Lagos was in its “dark period”, given the record of fatalities from the site of the building collapse.
He pledged on behalf of members to discharge the duty with all sense of responsibility and in line with ethics.
“We accept at our own liberty and with humility the important assignment the State has placed before us. We will go ahead with a sense of dedicated responsibility. This exercise can only make the expected difference if we all agree to place value on Nigerian life. As members, we promise to be guided by professional standards and hope that we will chart a new course that will guarantee the safety of lives of Nigeria citizens,” Ayinde said.
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