‘How a lawyer narrowly escaped death from collapsed building in Ikoyi’

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Sharing his experience about building collapse, the Attorney General and the Commissioner for Justice in Lagos State, Lawal Pedro, narrated how he escaped being trapped in 360 Degrees Tower – a multi-storey building under-construction, located at No. 20, Gerard Road in Ikoyi, Lagos that collapsed on November 1, 2021.

This was contained in a document sent to Nigerian Tribune in Lagos, on Sunday, by former president of the Building Collapse Prevention Guild (BCPG), Mr Kunle Awobodu.

Speaking at the Building Collapse Advocacy Programme organised by the Building Collapse Prevention Guild (BCPG), Ikeja Cell, in conjunction with the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Ikeja Branch, recently, Pedro explained that the owner of the structure had earlier before the building collapsed, lost his legal counsel.

He said the developer, Mr Femi Osibona then visited his chambers on a recommendation to engage him as his new counsel.

After listening to the developer’s narration, Pedro said he signed in a counsel/lawyer for him with specific instructions on the building approval to know what he is building, the land title and if there was any other issue on the project that should be made known to the chambers.

Pedro mentioned that he even went to the point of asking Osibona how far he had gone on the project and the level of work yet to be done.

He then realised that the client had prepared a list of persons they were to process deed of sale for.

The day the tragic incident happened, the counsel he had assigned to him was supposed to meet with him at the building at 10am.

The lawyer called to inform him (Mr Pedro) that he needed to be at the court for a sitting and wanted to seek his advice on what to do.

Pedro said he advised the lawyer to go to the court first (as he would need to spend more time with Mr Osibona) in order to be able to gather more information about the multi-storey project.

“So, the lawyer went first for the court sitting. At around 11 am after he had finished from the court, he called him (Mr Pedro) again to inform that he had a flat tyre, which he needed to fix.

“By the time he got to the site at Ikoyi to meet with the client, he noticed smoke in the atmosphere and then called Mr Pedro to inform that he could see smoke rising from the building. Then he reported that the building had collapsed.

He said the developer had called the lawyer shortly before his arrival at the site, directing him to come and meet him on the 10th floor. The unfortunate incident happened few minutes after they spoke on phone.

The lawyer missed death by a whisker.

It was later discovered that the approval issued for the building construction was totally different from the ongoing construction at the time of the building collapse. Also, there was a possibility of change of consultants or designers at some stages in the project development.

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