Collapse after collapse – why Lagos buildings keep crashing down
BBC- A building has collapsed in Nigeria’s megacity, Lagos, once every two weeks on average so far this year.
Whereas the commercial cost can be calculated, a figure can never be put on the value of the lives lost underneath the rubble.
The gaps among the buildings, replaced by piles of debris, represent a failure of governance as well as giving rise to allegations of contractors trying to cut corners to save money.
There are regulations, there are maintenance schedules, there are inspectors – but the system does not work.
Those responsible are never held to account, and so nothing ever changes.
Lagos, dubbed by one expert who spoke to the BBC as ” the building-collapse capital of Nigeria”, has seen at least 90 buildings falling down in the last 12 years, leaving more than 350 people dead, according to the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria.
One of the most notorious incidents was in 2021.
Sunday Femi was just metres away, in the upmarket suburb of Ikoyi, when a 21-storey block of luxury flats under construction collapsed, killing 42 people.
After the loud crashing sound, he was engulfed in dust.
“Like many, I rushed inside trying to see if I could help some of the people trapped. Sadly I knew some of those who died and I think about it every day,” he says, reflecting on what happened nearly three years ago.
