Editor
No fewer than nine people, including a baby girl, were feared dead while 26 others were rescued after a three-storey shopping mall collapsed on Old Ojo Road near Alakija Bus Stop along the Lagos-Badagry Expressway in Satellite Town, Ori-Ade Local Council Development Area of Lagos State.
The building, which housed several businesses, including generator dealerships, a cybercafé and Point-of-Sale (POS) outlets, reportedly caved in at about 11a.m. on Thursday, triggering panic as residents, commuters and traders fled the area before joining emergency responders in rescue efforts.
Eyewitnesses said several people were trapped beneath the rubble when the structure suddenly collapsed.
A police officer at the scene disclosed that about 15 people, including children and infants, were initially rescued, while rescue teams continued efforts to locate others trapped inside the debris.
One eyewitness, Musa, said he was riding a motorcycle towards Mile 2 when he heard a loud sound before turning to discover that the building had collapsed.
Another resident, Sule, said he narrowly escaped the tragedy after arriving at a nearby shop minutes before the incident.
Some residents claimed the building had shown signs of structural defects for years, with one resident revealing that his employer relocated a cybercafé from the premises two years earlier because of concerns over the building’s safety. Others alleged that the Lagos State Government had previously marked the structure for evacuation.
The Permanent Secretary of the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA), Dr. Olufemi Oke-Osanyintolu, confirmed that multi-agency rescue operations were immediately activated following the incident.
He said emergency responders rescued 26 people alive while nine bodies, including that of a baby girl, had been recovered. He added that search and rescue operations remained ongoing following reports that additional shop owners and occupants could still be trapped beneath the rubble.
The Controller-General of the Lagos State Fire and Rescue Service, Margaret Adeseye, also confirmed that firefighters and other emergency responders were deployed immediately after receiving a distress call. She said the rescued victims, who sustained varying degrees of injuries, were handed over to medical personnel for treatment, while all recovered bodies were taken to the Navy Town Hospital in Alakija.
Agencies involved in the operation included LASEMA, the Lagos State Fire and Rescue Service, the Federal Fire Service, the Nigeria Police Force, the Nigerian Navy, the Lagos Neighbourhood Safety Corps, the Nigerian Red Cross Society and other emergency response teams.
Reacting to the incident, Chairman of the Real Estate Developers Association of Nigeria (REDAN), Lagos Chapter, Dr. Tony Kolawole, blamed recurring building collapses on weak regulatory enforcement, negligence and compromise by relevant authorities.
Kolawole argued that building collapses are avoidable disasters caused by the use of substandard materials, disregard for professional advice, manipulation of approval processes and poor compliance with safety regulations.
He called on the Lagos State Building Control Agency (LASBCA) and other regulatory agencies to intensify structural integrity inspections and prosecute developers, contractors, consultants, property owners and public officials found culpable of violating building regulations.
According to him, demolishing defective structures without prosecuting those responsible only encourages further disregard for safety standards and places more lives at risk.
Franktalk
Extrasportnigeria 
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