Two school buildings have now collapsed in Lagos in less than two months.
The first, at Odokekere High School in Ikorodu, caved in on January 15. The second, at Yemco Daycare Nursery, Primary and Comprehensive College in Ogba, fell on Monday, March 9.
EDITOR’S PICKS
No lives were lost in either incident, but that is not a policy achievement. It is luck. And luck is not a strategy.
In the Ogba collapse, residents, not school staff, first noticed the crack in the wall. A fashion designer raised the alarm. Neighbours joined him to compel teachers to act. The evacuation was frantic enough that students stampeded one another, with some requiring hospitalisation.
That Lagos averted a mass casualty event is due to the alertness of bystanders, not any system the state government had in place. A community saved those children. The state showed up afterwards.
A Pattern the Government Cannot Keep Explaining Away
After the Odokekere collapse, the Lagos Special Committee on Rehabilitation of Public Schools (SCRPS) said the block had already been marked for demolition.
It was a curious defence, one that raised more questions than it answered. If the building was marked for demolition, why were students still being taught inside it? Who authorised continued use of a condemned structure? The statement offered reassurance without accountability.
The Ogba incident involves a private school, which shifts some of the immediate regulatory burden to the Lagos State Building Control Agency (LASBCA) and relevant education authorities.
But the state cannot wash its hands of the broader picture. Private schools operate under licences issued by government agencies. The building had been undergoing renovation, a process that, according to residents, may have destabilised the structure.
Whether approvals were obtained for that renovation, and whether any inspection followed, are questions the state must answer. Licensing without oversight is not regulation. It is paperwork.
What Accountability Must Now Look Like
Lagos has the structures — LASBCA, the SCRPS, the Ministry of Education — but two collapses in quick succession suggest a gap between institutional existence and institutional function.
LASBCA officials were at the Ogba scene to seal the premises after the fact. The question is whether they, or any equivalent body, were ever there before. Reactive presence is not the same as regulatory competence.
Two collapses in under two months demand more than condolences and relocation orders. They demand a public audit of school buildings across the state, both public and private, with clear timelines, published results, and consequences for non-compliance.
The SCRPS list of structures marked for demolition should be made public, and any school on that list should have its students moved immediately, not after the building decides to fall on its own schedule. Parents deserve to know whether the school their child attends every morning has been quietly flagged as unsafe.
Beyond Repair: The Need for Systemic Change
School buildings do not collapse without warning. Cracks appear. Walls shift. Materials degrade over years of neglect and deferred maintenance.
What fails first is not the structure; it is the inspection regime that should have caught the problem earlier. In Ogba, it was a fashion designer who saw the crack, not a government inspector. That detail should embarrass every agency with a mandate to protect school children in Lagos.
Lagos must invest in routine, mandatory structural assessments of school buildings, with findings tied to enforceable action rather than filed away in committee reports. Where renovation work is ongoing in any school premises, inspections should be automatic and immediate, not optional and belated.
FURTHER READING
Parents in Lagos send their children to school trusting that the state has done its job. Two collapses have now tested that trust. A third would not just be a structural failure, it would be a governance one. The government has enough warning. It no longer has the excuse of surprise.
Philip Ibitoye is a Special Correspondent with EKO HOT BLOG. Click here to find daily analysis and critical insight on trending issues in Lagos and other parts of Nigeria.
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