Tag Archives: Lagos

Hopes fade of finding survivors of Nigeria high-rise collapse as toll rises

By Fikayo Owoeye

LAGOS (Reuters) – Hopes are fading of finding survivors four days after a high-rise apartment block building under construction collapsed and trapped scores of people in the Nigerian commercial capital of Lagos, officials said.

Ibrahim Farinloye, head of the national emergency unit in Lagos, said the death toll stood at 36. The Lagos state emergency agency put the casualty number at 29 and said eight people had been critically injured.

Large crowds, including anxious family members, have been gathering daily near the site of the collapse, now a pile of broken masonry and mangled steel.

Lagos governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu on Thursday said a six-member panel of engineers, architects and town planers had been appointed to “bring closure to this event and ensure that justice is served”.

The panel has a month to present its findings.

Building collapses are frequent in Africa’s most populous country, where regulations are poorly enforced and construction materials often substandard.

Phone numbers for the project owner, main contractor, project manager, structural engineers and architects listed near the collapsed building could not be reached when Reuters called on Thursday.

The collapsed building, in the affluent neighborhood of Ikoyi, was one of three planned high-end apartment blocks.

Moshood Adesola, a witness who works in a nearby office, told Reuters that more than 50 people worked at the site daily.

(Additional reporting by Lanre Ola in Maiduguri; Writing by Chijioke Ohuocha; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Rescuers search for survivors after Lagos building collapse kills six

By Nneka Chile

LAGOS (Reuters) -Rescuers on Tuesday dug through rubble searching for survivors a day after a luxurious high-rise building collapsed while under construction in Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos, as officials put the death toll at six and scores were reported missing.

Emergency services used earth moving equipment to lift chunks of masonry at the site in the affluent neighborhood of Ikoyi after torrential rains pounded Lagos overnight and briefly stopped the search. Large trailers were brought in to help move debris, blocking one of Ikoyi’s main roads.

Building collapses are frequent in Africa’s most populous country, where regulations are poorly enforced and construction materials often substandard.

“Currently all responders are on the ground as search and rescue is ongoing,” Lagos state official Olufemi Oke-Osanyintolu said, adding that the death toll stood at six.

Seven people have so far been rescued alive as excavators sifted rubble from the heaps of shattered concrete and twisted metal that engulfed the site where the building once stood.

Witnesses say up to 100 people were missing after the luxury residential structure crumbled, trapping workers under a pile of rubble.

President Muhammadu Buhari has called for rescue efforts to be stepped up.

Agitated families whose relatives and loved ones were missing refused to speak to media, although they could be heard accusing emergency services of lacking urgency after rescue efforts were briefly halted due to the rains.

New high-end apartments have been springing up in Ikoyi, and the collapsed building was part of three towers being built by private developer Fourscore Homes, where the cheapest unit was selling for $1.2 million.

The project developer and owner of Fourscore Homes, Olufemi Osibona told a local news channel in August that he had developed buildings in Peckham and Hackney in Britain and that the Ikoyi apartments were the start of bigger projects he planned in Nigeria.

Osibona could not be reached for comment on Tuesday. Some local media reports said he may have been among those trapped.

A narrator in a promotional video on Fourscore Homes Instagram page says the complex “bestrides the Ikoyi landscape like a colossus,” and showed the buildings as each having rooftop pools and being kitted out with luxury fittings.

Telephone calls to numbers listed for Fourscore Homes and the main building contractor did not ring through on Tuesday.

(Additional reporting by Libby George in Lagos and Chijioke Ohuocha in Abuja, Editing by Clarence Fernandez, William Maclean)

Several workers trapped under collapsed high-rise in Nigeria -witnesses

By Nneka Chile

LAGOS (Reuters) – A luxury residential high-rise under construction in Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos collapsed on Monday, trapping several workers under a pile of concrete rubble, witnesses said.

Two workers at the site in the affluent neighborhood of Ikoyi, where many blocks of flats are under construction, told Reuters that possibly 100 people were at work when the building came crashing down.

Building collapses are frequent in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, where regulations are poorly enforced and construction materials often substandard.

There were heaps of rubble and twisted metal where the 20-story building once stood, as several workers looked on. One man wailed, saying his relative was among those trapped.

It was not immediately clear what caused the collapse.

The building was part of three towers being built by private developer Fourscore Homes. In a brochure for potential clients, the company promises to offer “a stress-free lifestyle, complete with a hotel flair.” The cheapest unit was selling for $1.2 million.

Calls to the numbers listed for Fourscore Homes and the main building contractor did not ring through.

The Lagos State Emergency Management Agency said it had activated its emergency response plan. “All first responders are at the scene while heavy duty equipment and life detection equipment have been dispatched,” the agency said in a statement.

(Additional reporting by Tife Owolabi in Yenagoa, writing by MacDonald Dzirutwe, editing by Nick Macfie and Mark Heinrich)

No-stress scripture: Nigerian Christians relish Pidgin Bible

By Angela Ukomadu

LAGOS (Reuters) – At the Heavenly Citizen’s Church in Lagos, the pastor and congregation have adopted a new tool to help them understand Christian scripture: the first Bible translated into Nigerian pidgin.

Sometimes called pidgin English, the language is widely used and understood across regions and ethnic groups in the nation of 200 million people, although most books and newspapers on sale in Nigeria are in English.

“Most people here, they are not properly schooled, you know, and so we do more pidgin English here,” said pastor Ben Akpevwe, who has been using the Pidgin Bible during services at his church in the down-at-heel Ejigbo neighborhood in Lagos.

“Each time I am reading it in church they are always very excited because it is like identifying with the language of the people.”

The Pidgin Bible is the result of three years of solitary labor by amateur translator Salem Egoh. He wanted to improve the understanding of the Bible in the fervently religious country, where English is the official language, but not the mother tongue for millions of people.

He said the job had required creativity because many words found in English versions of the Bible had no exact equivalent in pidgin.

“For example the word ‘chariot’ has no word in pidgin, we had to invent a word called ‘horse motor’ to represent chariot,” said Egoh, who included a glossary of 1,000 words at the end of his translation.

So far, the Pidgin Bible consists of the New Testament, the Book of Psalms and the Book of Proverbs. Egoh is working on a translation of the rest of the Old Testament, and hopes to release a complete Bible by the end of the year.

Working his way through a passage from the Book of Chronicles, he typed: “David plus all di pipo of Israel march go Jerusalem (wey be Jebus).” This was translated from: “And David and all Israel went to Jerusalem, that is, Jebus.”

In the meantime, at the Heavenly Citizen’s Church, worshipper Elizabeth Eromosele is already making good use of the Pidgin Bible, which is on sale across Nigeria and has been adopted by a number of places of worship.

“When it comes to English language you have to really crack your brain,” she said.

“But when it comes to Pidgin Bible you will read it as if you are interacting, you are talking freely. You are just reading it with comfort, you are not stressing yourself.”

(Writing by Estelle Shirbon; Editing by Alison Williams)

Nigerian police free 19 women and girls from Lagos ‘baby factory’: statement

By Seun Sanni and Angela Ukomadu

LAGOS (Reuters) – Police in Nigeria’s biggest city, Lagos, have freed 19 women and girls who had mostly been abducted and impregnated by captors planning to sell their babies.

The girls and women, aged from 15 to 28, had been brought from all over Nigeria with promises of work, Lagos police said on Monday. Four babies were also found.

“Baby factories”, as such premises are widely known, are most common in parts of eastern Nigeria.

“The young women were mostly abducted by the suspects for the purpose of getting them pregnant and selling the babies to potential buyers. The girls were tricked with employment as domestic staff in Lagos,” said Lagos police spokesman Bala Elkana.

“Boys are sold for 500,000 naira ($1,630) and girls for 300,000 naira ($980).”

The girls and women were brought to Lagos from the southern and eastern states of Rivers, Cross River, Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Abia and Imo.

Elkana said the raid had taken place on Sept. 19 but had been kept secret to enable the police to apprehend suspects.

Two women aged 40 and 54 were arrested in connection with the case and police were still looking for a third.

One of the freed women, who did not want to be named, said she had been impregnated by her boyfriend and told by her aunt that there was a job for her in Lagos.

She said a woman to whom she was introduced had induced her labor when she was seven months pregnant.

“After being in labor for three days, that was when police raided the place and took all of them. The baby came out weak and finally died,” she told Reuters.

Elkana said the state criminal investigation department would take over the case and was working with other agencies to resettle the women and girls and their babies.

Last week, around 400 boys and men, some as young as five and many in chains and scarred from beatings, were rescued from a building in the northern city of Kaduna that purported to be an Islamic school.

(Reporting By Seun Sanni and Angela Ukomadu, writing by Libby George; editing by Alexis Akwagyiram and Kevin Liffey)

100 children, many others feared trapped in collapse of Nigeria building that housed school

Men carry a boy who was rescued at the site of a collapsed building containing a school in Nigeria's commercial capital of Lagos, Nigeria March 13, 2019. REUTERS/Temilade Adelaja

By Nneka Chile and Temilade Adelaja

LAGOS (Reuters) – As many as 100 children and many others were feared trapped on Wednesday after a building containing a primary school collapsed in Nigeria’s commercial capital Lagos.

People gather as rescue workers search for survivors at the site of a collapsed building containing a school in Nigeria's commercial capital of Lagos, Nigeria March 13, 2019. REUTERS/Temilade Adelaja

People gather as rescue workers search for survivors at the site of a collapsed building containing a school in Nigeria’s commercial capital of Lagos, Nigeria March 13, 2019. REUTERS/Temilade Adelaja

A Reuters reporter at the scene saw a boy of 10 being pulled from the rubble covered in dust but with no visible injuries. A crowd erupted into cheers as another child was pulled from the wreckage. The two were among eight children residents said had been rescued so far.

Workers on top of the rubble shoveled debris away as thousands of people swarmed around the rescue site — dozens watching from rooftops and hundreds more packed into the surrounding streets.

“It is believed that many people including children are currently trapped in the building,” said Ibrahmi Farinloye, spokesman for the National Emergency Management Agency’s southwest region, adding that casualty figures were not yet available.

Residents of the area said around 100 children attended the school, which was on the third floor of the building.

At the site, many people were shouting and screaming. A fight almost broke out as anger at the collapse boiled over.

In the crowd’s midst stood ambulances, fire trucks and a fork lift. Workers from the Red Cross and police were on hand.

The building was in the Ita-faji area of Lagos island, the original heart of the lagoon city before it expanded onto the mainland.

Nigeria is frequently hit by building collapses, with weak enforcement of regulations and poor construction materials often used. In 2016, more than 100 people were killed when a church came down in southeastern Nigeria.

In Lagos that same year, a five-story building still under construction collapsed, killing at least 30 people.

A floating school built to withstand storms and floods was also brought down in Lagos in 2016, though nobody was reported injured.

(Reporting by Nneka Chile, Temilade Adelaja and Alexis Akwagyiram in Lagos; Additional reporting by Paul Carsten and Camillus Eboh in Abuja and Ola Lanre in Maiduguri; Editing by Catherine Evans and Peter Graff)