Sanwo-Olu condemns cases of Lagos collapsed buildings

The Lagos State Governor-Elect, Babajide Sanwo-Olu yesterday described the recent collapsed building in the state as unfortunate.

But he praised the swift actions taken by Governor Akinwunmi Ambode to address the problem.

The Governor-Elect spoke with State House correspondents after meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari alongside the Deputy Governor-elect, Femi Hafsat.

He said: “It’s an unfortunate incident. Incidentally, when I was in government before, I used to be the Vice Chairman of the building collapse committee. It was something that happened about 8-10 years ago, which was what led to the creation of an agency which we called Lagos State Building Control Agency (LASBCA)  at that time, which was meant to begin to identify structures way ahead before such incidences occur.

“But it’s an unfortunate thing, extremely very unfortunate and it is not something that we will like to see it happening again. So the current government has started very quickly, ensuring that they test the integrity of a whole lot of properties we have there.

“You know Lagos State is part of the old colony of Lagos and it is not unexpected that you see houses that are over a century old and in those numbers so we need to be real and know that Lagos truly really needs regeneration especially Lagos Island.

“That was one of the things we promised during the campaign trail so it’s to have a conversation around the families and see the kind of re-development that is important as is being done in a lot of other big cities like Lagos,” he said

According to him, he was in the State House alongside his Deputy-Elect, Femi Hamzat, to pay courtesy on the President and congratulate him for winning the Presidential election.

On what he is offering the people of Lagos when he assumes office, Sanwo-Olu said he has seen the challenges ahead and will come up with solutions without delay.

“We are very excited that we have seen all the challenges ahead of us and we will certainly be bringing about solutions that will very quickly solve all of our various challenges in Lagos and we know that with a mega city of our status, it comes with a lot of challenges but we are lucky that we have been part of it before now so we are excited that we are bringing solutions to problems that we identified on the campaign trail.

“We will very quickly bring about positive development that would improve the quality of lives and ease all of the challenges that we currently see in Lagos,” he said.