The Lagos State government has announced plans to replace the collapsed Odokekere High School building with 18 new classrooms, reaffirming its commitment to improving school infrastructure and ensuring the safety of pupils and teachers.
Hakeem Smith, the chairman of the Lagos State Special Committee on Rehabilitation of Public Schools (SCRPS), made this known recently, while expressing regret over the development.
Smith disclosed that the new classrooms would be completed by September, ahead of the commencement of the 2026/27 academic year.
He explained further that the new intended structure will comprise ground, first and second floors, with requisite toilet facilities and well-ventilated classrooms, similar to those constructed in other parts of the state.
“It will take us about six to nine months, barring any challenges, so that before they resume the new academic session in September, it should be ready,” he said.
The SCRPS chairman noted that the incident was unexpected, stressing that the government is set to build a new structure for the school, emphasising that modalities are in place to implement that before the end of the year.
“We had planned to put up a new structure for them this year. We have all the records and drawings ready and were only waiting for this year’s budget approval to move to site. Thank God there were no casualties, and we are definitely moving to the site,” he said.
Besides, he revealed that the contractor returned to the site on Friday, a day after collapse to take stock of what is needed before the start of the construction work.
However, he emphasised that the collapsed building was not a government project but a temporary community effort put in place to ease classroom shortages.
“The collapsed structure was a community intervention aimed at addressing acute classroom shortages caused by a sharp increase in enrolment,” he noted.
Smith said that to prevent a recurrence of such, the state government would introduce a policy to regulate community and private interventions in public schools, ensuring that all such efforts receive proper approval and technical oversight.
“The committee had rehabilitated 423 classroom blocks and delivered 1,500 new classrooms across educational districts in the state,” he said.
According to eyewitness reports, the collapsed school structure is in a community situated at the boundary of Lagos and Ogun States.
Olusola Kayode, a civil servant in Lagos attributed the collapse to neglect, according to him, it is ‘a sheep with two different owners which often suffers of hunger’.
“Odogunyan, and Odonla are in Lagos State while Odokekere is in Ogun State. This very community is neither in Lagos nor Ogun States; it’s a boundary town between the end of Ikorodu and the beginning of Sagamu,” he said.
