DEATH OF 30: DRAMA AS BUILDER SAYS LEKKI GARDENS ESTATE BREACHED TERMS OF PAYMENT

IKEJA, Lagos, Nigeria – More facts have continued to emerge which could have accounted for the collapse of a three storey building in Lekki Phase 1, leading to the death of 30 people. The builder, Mr Sodiq Kuyebi made the stunning revelation on Thursday, at a Special Offences Court sitting in Ikeja.

According to him, dispute in payment forced his firm, Geostruct Consult Limited to abandon the construction of the foundation of the collapsed Lekki Gardens building. Kuyebi spoke during the trial of Richard Nyong, Managing Director of Lekki Gardens Estate Ltd and eight others before Justice Sybil Nwaka.

Nyong’s co-defendants are Lekki Gardens Estate Limited, Get Rich Investment Limited known as Horizon 1 Extension House H15, Mr Sola Olumofe; the firm’s contractor, Odofin Henry Taiwo; Omolabake Mortunde, Omotilewa Joseph and HC Insight Solution Limited. They are facing a six-count charge bordering on failure to obtain building approval and involuntary manslaughter over the building collapse which killed 30 people.

During the trial Kuyebi, the third prosecution witness, narrated events leading to the dispute. He was led in evidence by Mrs O. A Oluwafemi, an Assistant Director of the Directorate of Public Prosecution (DPP).

“My geologist and I met Mr Marius Agu (the architect of the building) and the rest of the defendants in 2015 at Mr Agu’s office at No. 2 Rosewood Close, Osbourne and he informed us that he has work for us at Lekki. He said he is not looking to give it out as a contract but he was looking for riggers, he gave me the pipe specifications at Osbourne and he said we only need to drill and cast. We negotiated N70,000 per pipe and I didn’t to hear from him till some time later when he called me and said he was ready.

“I asked for mobilization fee and he said he will not mobilize until we moved our equipment to the site. Upon mobilization, he paid N1million and he introduced me to one Engineer Iyke and Mr Gabriel, staff of Lekki Gardens to basically show us what to work on. They showed us the block we are to work on which is Block H15 at Elegushi, I handed over my riggers to Engineer who supervised them. After mobilization, we did 20 pipes and we stopped, he gave us an additional N750,000 and after we had done 37 pipes, we were asked to stop because our work was slow. We had an agreement to work for six weeks but he breached the payment terms, they were supposed to give is 50 percent of the lump sum but they gave us N1million,” Kuyebi said.

He said he was only paid about N1.7million to work on the foundation of the collapsed building and that his casual workers were at the site reporting to Mr Iyke, engineer of Lekki Gardens.

“If we had finished the work, we would have advised them to carry out a quality control test. I was disengaged in mid April 2015 and I did not go to back to the site, I heard about the collapse of the five-storey building from the news and I called Mr Agu who told me H15 had collapsed. When I heard about the building collapse, I was devastated, I was not happy,” Kuyebi said.

On cross-examination by Mr Wole Olanipekun (SAN) Kuyebi said that he was contracted to make 65 pipes by Agu and that he was not given a structural drawing of the collapsed building by the architect. Kuyebi revealed to Olanipekun that he appeared before two commissions of inquiry regarding the incident and was surprised to see a structural design he had allegedly made for the building.

“We never prepared a structural design; we were surprised when we were told that we were the ones who made the design,” he said. Earlier during proceedings, the second prosecution witness, Mr Demola Ojedokun, a town planner revealed to the court while being cross-examined by Olanipekun that he never met Agu, the architect of the building and he didn’t visit the site during construction.

“There is no way I won’t visit the site in which I gave approval, as at the time I visited, there was no construction yet. I didn’t visit subsequently till the building collapsed. I don’t know Marius Agu, because I did not have any interface with the person who submitted the building plan,” he said.

Ojedokun revealed that his office received an average of 60 applications for building permits monthly and he was not tutored on the building collapse following his a statement to the police on March 23, 2016. Ojedokun said following the report of the commission of inquiry into the incident, some officials of Lagos State Government Building Control Agency were sacked.

“The reason for their sack was because of negligence and collusion,” the town planner said. Justice Sybil Nwaka adjourned the case until May 17 and 21 for continuation of trial.