National Telescope national telescope newspaper
The Lagos State Government reiterated its resolve to demolish buildings that fail its integrity test on Thursday.
The state governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, spoke when he visited Dosunmu Market on Lagos Island, which was gutted by fire on Tuesday.
However, 14 buildings were gutted by fire, which resulted in the loss of goods worth millions of naira, respectively.
“The fire started in the penthouse of one of the buildings, where a man was carelessly refueling a generator before it ignited and escalated to other buildings. There were many generators in the building that further compounded the escalation,” according to the Lagos Territorial Coordinator of the National Emergency Management Authority, Ibrahim Farinloye.
When the governor visited the scene of the incident, he said, “A lot of residential apartments have been turned into warehouses. I am saying without any iota of doubt that more buildings will go down.
“I just finished the assessment of a very unfortunate, but preventable disaster.
“Access was denied to the first responder to the fire for a couple of hours. This fire started more than 48 hours ago and is still alive.
“At the last count, we have about 14 houses that have been affected, and more may go down after the extensive test.”
“What I have seen here is what could have been prevented. We do not have a full report yet, so I do not want to speculate.
“From the initial report, it was gross carelessness.”
Meanwhile, the Dosunmu Market would be closed indefinitely, but the government would assist those affected.
“We will bring down any property that does not conform to our rules and regulations of construction.
“We cannot allow anyone to put the lives and property of others and the environment at risk.
“We will support those affected by the fire so they can get back on their feet, however.
“There are more progressive things we ought to be doing than spending scarce resources on avoidable accidents,’’ the governor said at the site of the fire.
