Ikoyi building collapse: Relief as COREN weighs in, sets up investigative panel

It was a huge sigh of relief on Wednesday when the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) weighed into the collapse of the 21-storey building at Gerrard Road, Ikoyi, Lagos with an investigative panel.

The body’s prolonged silence on the building collapse had been a source of worry.

The panel, COREN explained, was aimed to investigate the causes of the collapse. Members of the public expect that the outcome of the investigation would put an end to all forms of speculations on why and how a structure of that magnitude came down crashing.

The collapse of a 21-storey structure or building is an infrastructure and engineering failure. So, we are acting in line with our Act to know the remote and immediate causes and technically, of course, why this building came crashing,” he explained further.

Rabiu stressed that the panel was also to prevent speculative causes of the collapsed building. “As a professional, I do not speculate; that is why I have set up this committee,” he said, noting that building in Nigeria has become an all-comers affair, hence Nigerians are advised to engage only professionals in the built industry whenever they want to build.

He assured that COREN would not allow cover-ups as was experienced in some previous cases where action was not taken on evidences provided by the council, citing Synagogue Church of All Nations building collapse which claimed the lives of over 100 persons including foreign nationals.

The panel, which has been given six weeks to conduct a thorough investigation into the causes of the collapsed structure, has George Okoroma, the president of the Association for Consulting Engineering in Nigeria (ACEN) as chairman.