The recent collapse of the 360 degrees high rise in Lagos is sad. This is because it is a laudable project. One that presented an inroad into investments in high rise buiildings but as usual the point of tragedies has been missed under the guise of many commentators SPEAKING UP. But this is not speaking up. This is gloating.
Speaking up is KNOWING SOMETHING and alerting the relevant person to correct an error, and if he doesn’t then alerting the world BEFORE the incident in spite of the fact that he is your benefactor.
You didn’t do that. Rather you are doing the Nigerian thing. Seeking cheap popularity as somebody falls.
It takes the following form
1) BOOSTING SELF.. I knew him, we went to school together. We grew up as kids in Ikoyi.
2) REPEATING WHAT WE HAVE ALL ALREADY HEARD OVER NEWS. He added 6 extra floors! The government sealed it off once.
3) JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS. All three buildings are defective because of the 6 extra floors. One has already collapsed. We shouldn’t wait for investigations.
4) CONTRADICTING YOURSELF. Even in England all his properties added extra floors to the original plans. The authorities sealed them but later approved and they are still standing.
5) TRYING TO TAKE CREDIT FOR SPOKESMAN SHIP The issue is not whether additional floors were added. The issue is that a tragedy has occurred at the point of a potential estate development breakthrough. If any of you knew anything , YOU CERTAINLY DIDNT SPEAK UP WHEN IT MATTERED.
CAN U PLS ALL SHUT UP AND LET EXPERTS TELL US THE WAY FORWARD?
1. How many buildings are defective?
2. How much are investors losing?
3. How will this affect real estate generally
4. Will people feel safe in any high rise building by Nigerians after this?
5 What should be done to SAVE THIS PROJECT?
6 How best can it be done?
7. Moving forward what mistakes were made? What policy changes are needed by government to arrest same?
8. How can we encourage other creative investors to bring their ideas home? How do we train our engineers, architects and artisans?
9. How do we debunk the notion that anything that comes to Nigeria is coming to die?
10. How can we have better high rise buildings, and build more of them using local content?
