Ogun State Government has demolished a block of classrooms at Nazareth High School, Imeko in Imeko Afon Local Government Area of the state, barely one week after collapsing and killing a female student.
Daily Trust reports that the school had last week collapsed on female students of the secondary school, killing
Muinat Ilebiyi and injuring two others.
But the Chief Press Secretary to the governor of the state, Kunle Somorin, on Sunday hinted that the building had been demolished over the weekend on the instruction of Governor Dapo Abiodun.
Somorin said the governor had directed for the immediate reconstruction of the demolished block of classrooms.
According to him, the governor said any other public building found to be distressed would be pulled down and reconstructed.
Somorin said the demolition was supervised by the Ogun State Commissioner for Housing, Jagunmolu Omoniyi, and other top government officials to ensure the exercise was properly carried out.
“The state carried out the demolition of the school building in the larger public interest.
“The building was discovered to have become weak and could collapse and injure more students if not demolished.
“We will rather pull such weak and aged structures down than allow pupils’ lives to be endangered.
“Any building, at all, posing threats to life and property within the state will be pulled down because we cannot compromise citizens’ welfare and wellbeing in the name of managing sub-standard structures and with a view to ensuring better physical planning environment for sustainable development and averting needless loss of lives and properties,” the statement read.
Further justifying the government’s decision, the statement disclosed that; “all identified highly distressed structures, particularly public buildings like schools, hospitals, maternity or health centres will be tested for their structural integrity to be determined and where they fail the integrity test, such buildings will be pulled down and reconstructed.”
