Collapsed building: Lagos govt arrests developer, NEMA recovers four dead bodies from debris

Lagos State Government has arrested the developer of the collapsed building on Saturday.  The state government in a statement on its official Twitter handle late Saturday, indicated that the developer was arrested for breaking the government seal on the property and violating the stop-work order.

The statement added that the developer in charge of the site has since been arrested and handed over to the RRS Team, while rescue operation is ongoing.

“The Lagos State Government has arrested the developer of a collapsed building at No. 16 Akanbi Crescent, Onike, Yaba, for breaking the government seal on the property and violating the stop-work order,” the twitted statement @jidesanwoolu  @drobafemihamzat  read.

Meanwhile, four dead bodies were said to have been recovered from the collapsed building in Yaba. The recovered bodies were identified as some of the workers at the building site before it collapsed on Saturday.

The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) revealed that two workers were rescued alive, and thus, survived the incident. NEMA stated that of the two, only one was trapped in the building; the other is a teenager who escaped by luck after he complained of hunger and was given money to go and get food.

It was indicated that search and rescue operations on the building site has been concluded.

Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State decried that “This is an event that could be described clearly as a national disaster. Mistakes were made from all angles.” The governor was infuriated that such incident “really should not be happening in a modern-day city like Lagos”.