FG, Lagos disagrees regarding the fall of the Banana Island building. The National Inland Waterways Authority, which is part of the Federal ...
FG, Lagos disagrees regarding the fall of the Banana Island building.
The National Inland Waterways Authority, which is part of the Federal Government, and the Lagos State Government have different ideas about the seven-story building that fell down in the Banana Island area of the state.
Recently, the state government said that the National Inland Waterways Authority was to blame for the fall of the building.
The Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, is said to have said that NIWA officials were careless in how they gave out permits without taking into account the terrain of the area.
He also said that the place where the building fell wasn't in the original plan for the island.
In response to the governor's claim, NIWA's General Manager of Corporate Affairs, Jibril Darda'u, said in a statement on Friday that the state government's story on the collapsed building on Banana Island was not accurate.
He said that the information in the story was wrong about what happened before the building fell down.
In part, the statement said, "NIWA has been made aware of a false story that has gone viral on social media. The agency strongly disagrees with what the Lagos State Government said and said it was going to do about the Banana Island building that fell down, which was written in the same newspaper. The information in the release is false, has no basis in fact, and misrepresents the events that led to the collapse of the building on Banana Island in order to mislead people about what really happened.
Darda'u said that the Lagos State Government admitted in that release that it was their job to give permission to build.
He said that Governor Sanwo-Olu had said, "We are in charge of building permits. We never agreed with any of the four buildings in the back. This really is against the law. In another admission, the Governor of Lagos State said that some officials of the Lagos State Building Control Agency are corrupt and that they would be held responsible for the recent fall of a seven-story building on the island.
But the NIWA picture maker said it was clear that building permits were the responsibility of Nigeria's state governments, including Lagos State.
"Therefore, if these permits are gained illegally, the fault or mistake can only be put on the state government that gave them out, not on the Federal Government or any of its agencies, as in this case.
"The agency is set up by the NIWA Act CAP N47 LFN 2004, and there is no law that says the agency has to give out building permits and Certificates of Occupancy," he said.
He said that NIWA, as a law-abiding Federal Government body and in accordance with its establishing act, gives out permits for using the right of way, doing things in Nigeria's waterways, and reclaiming land.