APC chieftain raises alarm over plot to sabotage probe of Ikoyi building collapse 

A former Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Comrade Timi Frank, who is Ambassador of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) to East Africa and Middle East, on Saturday, raised an alarm of plot to sabotage investigations into the collapse of a 21-storey building at Gerrard Road, Ikoyi, Lagos State, by agents of the state.

Timi Frank in a statement in Abuja decried that despite the setting up of a panel of inquiry by Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State to unravel the immediate and remote causes of the collapse of the building in Ikoyi, he has credible information that files containing relevant approvals and title deeds of the plot of land are now missing from the Lagos State Land Registry.

The Ambassador of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) to East Africa and Middle East maintained that some officials of the Lagos State Government are working behind the scenes in collaboration with the real owners of the building to frustrate the probe panel chaired by Toyin Ayinde, President of the National Institute of Town Planners.

Timi Frank noted that the aim of the hatchet jobbers is to shield the owners of the building, believed to be top government officials, by blocking the panel’s access to relevant documents at the Lagos State Land Registry that would help to unravel the truth about the ownership and circumstances that led to the caving in of the edifice under construction.

Frank, therefore, “challenged Sanwo-Olu to cause all documents and files pertaining to the plot to be publicly delivered to the panel and equally publish same in Newspapers to reassure Nigerians that the files containing the relevant documents have not been confiscated.”

The former APC National Deputy Publicity Secretary called on Governor Sanwo-Olu to provide urgent answers to the following questions: “Who gave approval for the premises to be reopened after it was sealed for four months last year due to observed anomalies by agents of the Lagos State Government?

“Who are those powerful forces from above that put pressure on the Lagos State Government to reopen the premises for continuation of work.

“Why was the General Manager of the Lagos State Building Control Agency (LASBCA), Gbolahan Oki, hastily suspended indefinitely following the collapse of the building without waiting for the panel duly constituted by the State Government to carry out its assignment and submit a report?

“Again, who are those that already bought up the apartments in the structure that was under construction?”

Frank insisted that Nigerians need to know the Government officials who invested taxpayers’ money in the building and those who bought the apartments.