18th June, 2019
Officials of the Lagos Building Control Agency, LASBCA and the Taskforce on Tuesday dislodged labourers, shut and partially demolished some buildings worth millions of Naira for flouting building regulation guidelines in Victoria Island and Lekki area of Lagos, Southwest Nigeria.
One of the buildings sealed and partially demolished was a six-floor building named “Pinnacle” house located on 6 Samuel Manual Street, Victoria Island. The building owner, identified as retired military officer, was accused of broken the seals on several occasions after the agency sealed his structure for failing to get approval.
LASBCA said when the owner eventually got approval for a residential building, he converted the building to a commercial one, an offence punishable under the building regulation laws of Lagos State.
Director of Enforcement Unit, LASBCA, Oyewole Ganiyu, said the owners of the sealed buildings were guilty of deliberate violation of building laws in the state, adding while some of them refused to get approval before erecting the structures, others deliberately contravened the approval given.
Oyewole said that the state government would continue to enforce the law by demolishing and toking more buildings to serve as deterrent to others.
According to him, some areas were strictly designed for residential buildings according to the master plan, saying that only residential approval could be given in such areas, and that property owners must meet all the building regulation requirement.
On the four-storey building complex on 17 Ester Adeleke Street, Lekki Phase 1 where about 100 labourers and artisans were dislodged before the building was partially demolished, Oyewole said that owner of the building was yet to get any approval at all before putting up the structure.
“It is forbidden for anyone to build without approval according to the Urban and Renewal Planning Law of 2010.The property was initially sealed but the owner continued the construction illegally, that was why we toked the building from the ground floor to the top most floor,” he said.
However, a mild drama played out at the scene of one of the buildings as a suspected security officer attached to the building threatened LASBCA officials with gun for daring to seal the building belonging to his boss.
The suspected security personnel who threatened to shoot building agency officers was however overpowered by armed taskforce operatives who also confiscated the pistol with which he threatened the officials.