The Nigerian Institution of Structural Engineers (NIStructE) has stated that the recently collapsed 21-storey building in Ikoyi, Lagos state was originally designed to be six floors.
Fourscore Homes was the developer of the project which caved in on November 1, with over 40 people dead.
Femi Osibona, the owner of Fourscore Homes, is one of the 45 persons confirmed dead in the building collapse.
In a statement on Tuesday, Kehinde Osifala, NIStructE president, said the changes made to the Ikoyi project appear to “have been seriously inadequate”.
“There are clear indications of several design brief changes on the project and the engineering and management of these changes appear to have been seriously inadequate,” Osifala said.
“The building that collapsed was initially designed for just six floors, and later to 12 floors before this was further changed to 15 floors.
“It could not yet be established the adequacy of any properly designed and documented further revision to the eventual (and tragically, final) 21 floors that were being implemented and which collapsed.
“The preliminary investigation also revealed some evidence of structural inadequacy in the construction and that signs of some structural distress had already started to show within certain elements of the building.
Some remedial measures were already being undertaken to address some of this.
“The method of implementation of this was not in accordance with sound structural engineering practices.”
The NIStructE president also said the lack of proper quality control during the construction of the building was evident. The Ikoyi building which collapsed has two other adjoining similar buildings. There were rumoured reports that the Lagos state government was going to demolish them before the government denied the report.
