When the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, quoted the suspended General Manager of Lagos State Building Control Agency, LASBCA, Gbolahan Oki, as saying that the billionaire developer of the collapsed 25-storey building on Gerrard Street, Ikoyi, Lagos, had been arrested, Femi Osibona, had been arrested, Oki didn’t have his facts correct.
Osibona was not arrested. By the time Oki said that, Osibona’s car was parked at the site of the collapsed building, and his body, buried in the rubble.
Four days after the tragedy, Osibona’s body has been recovered from the rubble, identified, and taken to the the mortuary. And it is not the only controversy surrounding Oki’s pronouncements.
While he said that Osibona was given approval for 15 floors, the Deputy Governor of the State, Dr Obafemi Hamza, contradicted him when he said the approval was for 25 floors.
Osibona had visited the site that ill-fated day of Monday, November 1, along with his female Personal Assistant identified as Nifemi, and a friend of his, Wale Bob-Oseni who he had invited over to the site. Bob-Oseni was on his way to the Airport to take a flight back to the United States where he resided, but first honoured the invitation of his friend. That was how he branched to the site, and same fate tied them together.
Osibona’s body was recovered at about 7.00pm on Thursday, November 4. That of his PA was recovered earlier. It is not yet known if the body of Bob-Oseni has been recovered or not.
Osibona was the Managing Director/CEO, Fourscore Homes Ltd.
As at the time of writing this, 39 bodies have been recovered. Recovery efforts are still on-going.
Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu has declared a three-day mourning period in the State during which flags would fly at half mast.
