The collapse of the six-storey building of the Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN), Ikotun Egbe, Lagos, is a monumental tragedy. It is   lamentable that the death toll from the tragic incident has risen to 80, while the number of those rescued stands at 131. The building, which was originally two-storey, had three new floors added to it, but it collapsed last week as the sixth floor was being constructed. The collapsed edifice used to house numerous foreign visitors to the fast-growing new generation church.
Prophet T.B. Joshua, the founder of the Church, has blamed the incident on a certain aircraft that he claimed hovered severally over the structure under construction before it fell like a pack of cards. He suggested that the structure was the target of a terrorist attack specifically directed at his person. Already, the Church’s video clips of the strange plane that allegedly hovered over the building 50 minutes before its collapse have been handed over to the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) for investigation.
Regardless of the cause of this incident, it is a tragedy that led to avoidable loss of lives and injury of scores of its victims. The Ikotun case, which recorded the highest number of casualties in a building collapse in recent memory, has once again brought to the fore the unending tales of collapsing buildings in Lagos and other parts of the country.
Collapses of buildings in the past had been attributed to factors ranging from the use of non-professionals in the construction of buildings and non-adherence to building codes and plans. The use of inferior building materials has also often been identified as another factor. Perhaps, a mixture of these factors might have been responsible for the incessant buildings collapse in the country, particularly in Lagos, which accounts for the highest incidence of the problem in the country so far.
Although, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has not revealed the nationalities of the dead victims, the South African president, Jacob Zuma, has claimed that 77 of his compatriots are among the dead while scores of others sustained various degrees of injuries. In view of this revelation by Zuma, let there be an investigation to determine the nationalities of the dead victims.
We enjoin the probe panel set up by the Lagos State government to thoroughly investigate the sad incident with a view to unearthing it cause or causes. In doing so, all clues should be closely examined. The Lagos State Commissioner for Physical Planning and Urban Development, Olutoyin Ayinde, has said that the collapsed structure had no building approval. The probe should establish whether the additional floors that were added were approved or not. It should also determine whether the building was handled by qualified building engineers and the quality of raw materials used in the construction. It should establish the roles played by officials of Lagos State Building Control Agency (LASBCA) in the saga. Government must ensure that all those who have a hand in the tragic incident are brought to book to avoid a repeat of such ugly incident. The Lagos State government and, indeed, other state governments in the country should wake up and enforce building plans and regulations.
Buildings often collapse because government officials in charge of monitoring and supervision of building construction do not always do their jobs as they should. Some of them compromise their offices in one way or the other. The ‘Stop Work’ mark often put on some buildings under construction by state building regulators is more often than not just a ploy to extort money from the owners of the buildings, as the orders are hardly enforced. Before any building plan is approved, the relevant agencies should conduct soil test to determine the number of floors such a building should carry, especially in a coastal area like Lagos where most lands are swampy and marshy. And, where additional floors are being added to a building, the concerned building authorities should conduct structural integrity test on the building before work starts.
It is time developers engage the services of building professionals in sourcing for materials and the actual construction process.  This will help to curb the rate of building collapse in the country. The use of non-professionals has inexorably led to incessant and unnecessary collapse of buildings in many parts of the country. This problem would not be so rampant in the country if government officials in charge of buildings take the job of monitoring and supervision of construction very seriously.
We commiserate with the SCOAN and all those who lost loved ones in this   unfortunate incident. While we pray for the repose of the souls of the departed ones, we wish the wounded speedy recovery. We commend    NEMA and officials of the Lagos State government for their quick response which led to the rescue of many of the victims.

The Synagogue building collapse