Babajide Sanwo-Olu, governor of Lagos State has corrected reports from the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) on the number of deaths and survivors at the 21-storey building that has collapsed in Ikoyi when he visited the site Thursday around 3pm.
“This morning, I took a trip to Lagos General Hospital to see and to encourage the citizens that have been rescued and receiving attention, 6 of them in total.
“However, one of them was moved this morning to LASUTH for additional investigative treatment. I think they’re doing MRI and high-level tertiary healthcare. But the five others are all in different spirits and I was able to speak to all of them and each had a different story and experience that can only be imagined.”
Sanwo-Olu said the State on Wednesday inaugurated a six-man panel and gave them the seal of office to investigate the matter. They have all the power to summon, enquire and engage anybody in the course of their investigation to be able to give thorough and transparent advice and recommendations coming from the investigation panel.
Read also: Day 4 of Ikoyi building collapse: 9 survive, 36 die
They have a 30-day turnaround to do the work because of the importance and urgency this is for us and all the panel members have assured us that that’s would be of service to the nation at this point in time.
“I have seen on some news media this morning that 37, 38, 36 bodies have been recovered. These are not confirmed authoritative information. As we stand here, they have recovered a total of 32 bodies. I repeat, 32 bodies have been so far recovered from this location and they’ve been transported to the morgue.”
The bodies are undergoing autopsy and a corona inquest investigation. Lagos State government is pushing for the work to move quickly so that all the corpses would be attended to. Some of the bodies will be available and ready by tomorrow so that the families can have a look and identify those bodies and at the appropriate time, take those bodies away.
“I want to express the government’s condolences to all of the families that must have had a loved one on the premises. Words certainly cannot express how we feel this is a very difficult time for everyone and we know that a lot of anger and disbelief is on. We will continue to encourage our first responders to show restraint,” the governor said.
Journalists on the scene of the collapse questioned the governor. “We were told by NEMA that death toll was 36, and the Lagos State say 32, isn’t it weird that there’s a discrepancy what Lagos and NEMA?
“Let’s understand the command and control is. This is a Lagos State site. The chain of command and control is from the ministry of health. They are the ones that have taken bodies to morgues so, they are accountable. The people that are moving corpses here are staff of the Lagos state ministry of health.
“The guys that are leading the rescue here are staff of LASEMA, but we understand and appreciate that there are other agencies both government and private that are collaborating with us. We said that we’d have only one official channel of communication. I’m not aware of any NEMA official.
“If you know who the person is, I can pass on the mic for the person to confirm or dispel what that is, but NEMA is not the one leading. We understand and appreciate we’re working collaboratively, like I said, a dead body is not something you will hide, it can only be taken to the morgue.”
