By Tokunbo Olajide
Governor of Lagos State, Babatunde Fashola, has called for attitudinal change by residents as a way of avoiding the perennial collapse of buildings in the state.
While speaking at a workshop on Policy Reform on Physical Planning and Building Control 2008 in Lagos, the governor insisted that until Lagosians become more law-abiding, efforts by government to solve societal problems, like building collapse and traffic congestion, would remain futile.
Fashola argued that “if we address only the attitudinal issues, we will be more than 50 per cent out of the challenges that we have to deal with today.”
The governor noted that the various laws made over the years to check some of these anomalies have not worked because the people have not only refused to comply but have continued as if there were no laws in existence.
“I think if we are to capture the problem of building collapse, it is simply the way we have chosen to live. We have refused to obey laws made by us for us. We have compromised the system and we have paid in human life needlessly,” he lamented.
Drawing from the issues of traffic congestion, Fashola cited the Agege Motor Road as an example, noting that though the road was originally built to connect the Airport to Mushin and Surulere, no one would today dare to drive to Mushin from the Airport through Oshodi because of the market that has taken over the road.
He declared: “If we build all the roads but don’t make them serve the purpose for which they are designed, the problem of traffic congestion won’t go away.
“We complain of traffic in Lagos, but we also do street shopping and choke up traffic. We have that choice to make - change,” he said.
The governor commended the last administration for responding very strongly to the incidence of building collapse, especially at the time when it involved buildings under construction, pointing out that the measures put in place then has significantly reduced the incident.
“The challenges we now have to deal with are from buildings that have been built before the last administration started, in the period that we call ‘the construction boom’, the period of the developer/financier in the early eighties,” the governor said.
What the government found out, Fashola said, was that in the construction of many of those buildings, professionals were not involved and in many instances, they were built at night while some had no approval nor complied with approval plans.
He lamented that even with the two-stage approval process introduced by his administration, the problem still continued largely because the issues involved were deeper than non-compliance with approvals.
“We found out that the problem was deeper than the non-compliance with approvals. Blocks for construction were being made from unsuitable materials (clay and sand).
“Buildings are being finished with substandard materials resulting in fire which affects the structural integrity of the buildings,” the governor lamented, adding that even where development and remodelling took place, professionals refused to act professionally.
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