The Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has revealed why he did not visit the site of the Ikoyi building collapse immediately after the incident occurred on Monday.
Sanwo-Olu said he was on an official trip to Rome for the G20 Summit where he was invited for a speaking engagement, which he had to cut short.
He said this during his visit to the scene of the incident on Gerard Road, Ikoyi, on Wednesday explaining that he returned to the country immediately after he was informed about the building collapse.
He said, “I think it’s important for me to let you know where I have been in the last one-and-a-half days. I actually travelled out of Nigeria in the early morning of Sunday. I had to travel to Rome to attend the G20 Summit in Rome.
“There was a side conference by the European Commission for African and Asia and I was invited to a speaking engagement and so we had engagement throughout Sunday night and also on Monday.
“Unfortunately, I was actually on the rostrum speaking on Monday when I got a call of what had happened here in Lagos and I had to turn back because I was also due to go to the COP26 Climate change conference where I had a speaking engagement but we had to terminate and truncate that and made a turnaround back to Lagos,” Sanwo-Olu explained.
On his return to Lagos, the governor said he headed straight to the collapsed building at about 1:00 am where he said he spent over two hours encouraging rescue workers and establishing a chain of control and command to ease the rescue operations.
“I was on site last night, straight from the airport and I was here for over two hours. Of course, an active rescue operation was ongoing and I encouraged all the men that were working because some of them had indeed been working for the last 12 hours and we had to create a clear chain of control and command – which is why you have some of the canopies that are out here now.
“And to have a clear process where families, press, and the general public could get answers to questions they might have and we all can indeed learn from this moving forward,” the governor stated. (Punch)
