*The Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria consoles the people of Lagos State over the incident, pledging to sanction any negligent engineering practitioners involved in the Ikoyi building collapse, in Lagos

Emmanuel Akosile | ConsumerConnect

Following its investigations into the devastating incident, the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) has described the collapse of the 21-storey building November 2021, in Ikoyi, Lagos, as an engineering failure.

Mr. Ali Rabiu, President of COREN, disclosed this finding Thursday, February 10, 2022, in Abuja, FCT, during the submission of a report by the Special Investigations Panel of the Ikoyi 21-storey collapsed building.

Ikoyi Building Collapse, in Lagos 

The President assured the panel that COREN would ensure that the recommendations were implemented by government in line with its mandate, agency report said.

The Council noted there might be two things to learn from the exercise, going forward after seeing what went wrong.

Rabiu also said that measures would be taken to correct the anomalies.

COREN will sanction negligence by practitioners if there is any engineer or any engineering practitioner involved in this collapse.

Rabiu further stated: “I want to assure you that COREN will by the mandate given to it by the act, ensure that such practitioners are sanctioned in accordance with the law.

“And, where they are not practitioners and they are found involved, we will ensure that we prosecute them in the court of competent jurisdiction.”

According to him, “the report will be forwarded to the appropriate organs of government and an executive summary and advice on the implementation of your recommendations.

“Once again, I want to take this opportunity to console the people of Lagos state for what happened and we pray that such never happen again.’’

The Chairman of the panel, Mr George Okoroma, while submitting the report to the president of COREN, said the panel had completed its task.

Okoroma said that the report was given to the COREN President and government to study, before making it available to the public.

He said that the report had been carefully documented and would be presented to COREN for them to study and after which it would be made public.

According to the Council, the COREN President set up the panel, following the collapse of a 21-storey building November 1, 2021, at Ikoyi killing 46 persons and rescue of 15 alive.

The panel was mandated to carry out a comprehensive inquisition on the remote and/or immediate cause(s) of the collapse among other terms of reference, report added.