Lagos Urges Residents To Vacate Defective Buildings

The Lagos State Government, through the Commissioner for Physical Planning and Urban Development, Dr. Idris Salako, has emphasised the need for residents occupying defective buildings to leave those buildings and relocate to safer places in order to save lives.

Dr. Salako made this call in Alausa on Wednesday while receiving members of the Olowora Community, who had come on a thank-you visit in appreciation of Lagos State Government’s intervention during last weekend rains when a building in the community caved in due to structural failure.

The Commissioner disclosed that some pillars of a mosque erected beside a burrowed pit gave way during the continuous rains and equally endangered several bungalows beneath the pit.

He stated that directives have been given to the Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development to seal up all the affected buildings without building permits and were unfit for habitation, urging residents to voluntarily vacate defective buildings in all parts of the State before the Lagos State Building Control Agency (LASBCA) remove such structures.

Salako restated the determination of the Lagos State Government to attain an orderly and livable physical environment where incidents of building collapse will be eliminated, calling on the citizens to always build by the rule as Government would no longer tolerate illegal building construction.

Earlier, the representative of the Bale of Olowora, Mr. Martins Kunle Sholesi thanked the Lagos State Government for its prompt response and pledged the support of his community towards the achievement of a Greater Lagos.