Oluwatosin Omojuyigbe
28 January 2022
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The Director-General of the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency, Oluwafemi Oke-Osayintolu, on Thursday confirmed that victims of the 21-storey building that collapsed on Gerrard Road, in the Ikoyi area of Lagos State did not die during rescue operations.
Oke-Osanyintolu stated this during the continuation of the coroner inquest into the building collapse presided over by Chief Magistrate Oyetade Komolafe.
The PUNCH had reported that the 21-storey building crumbled around 2pm on November 1, 2021.
The skyscraper, owned by Fourscore Heights Limited, trapped over 50 persons, including the firm’s Managing Director, Femi Osibona; his friend, a United States of America-based Nigerian businessman, Wale Bob-Oseni; and his personal assistant, Oyinye Enekwe, among others.
Giving his evidence on Thursday, Oke-Osayintolu told the coroner that evidence showed that the victims of the collapsed building were all dead before rescue operations commenced.
Oke-Osayintolu was led in evidence by the Lagos State Building Control Agency’s counsel, A.S Odugbemi.
He said, “Where we put the excavator is the first quadrum. We used the Delsa to detect if there was somebody alive and I said this type of collapse building was unique itself.
“When it piled on one another, there won’t be air going in, it would compress the victim and the way our response was operated, we divided the place into quadrums. We used a Delsa and drone; I can say that that probability is close to zero. There was nobody that died in the course of our intervention to the best of my knowledge.”
Following the evidence of Oke-Osayintolu, Magistrate Komolafe adjourned further hearing in the matter till February 4, 2022