By Oduche Azih
What a terrible way to go. Meanwhile we so much love to express outrage while not lifting a finger to help. Nobody remembers or cares to know that there is a regulatory framework to plan against, prevent/avert such tragedies.
I have written several times on the matter of regular explosions and fires in our NNPC/DPR regulated LPG filling plants springing up all over the country, (with many more to come), as we transition from kerosene, firewood and charcoal to our abundant Petroleum Gas resources that would otherwise be flared.
Or would we care to revisit the building codes that are routinely ignored at the wave of a bundle of Naira notes? Yet we all, including the culprits, will troop to the site of the latest building collapse to publicly express outrage and offer stupid and empty condolences.
In my earlier engineering career in an application as simple as an industrial bottle washer, I was exposed to Electric Magnetic Brakes. I even had to convince reluctant service providers at ELUSOS Limited that they had the capacity to rewind them and put them back into operation. This was something that they had never done before. The year was 1975/76. Fast forward to lifts/elevators that proliferated over the next 47years to this present day. The principle is the same, with complex Electronic Controls, Strain Gauges, Shock Absorbers and schemes of Multiple Redundancies built into the designs from all over the world. Lifts by many companies including Mitsubishi Electric, Schindler, Otis Elevator, KONE, Thyssenkrupe, Toshiba, Fuji, grace many elegant hotels, office blocks, hospitals and public building in the entire length and breath of Nigeria. Our exposure is only growing. We must be prepared.
Manufacturers’ installation and maintenance protocols are supposedly elaborate and are routinely updated.
Now, for the hard part. Which Federal and/or State Regulatory agency is responsible for Monitoring, and Testing/Certifying the Installation and Operation of Lifts/Elevators, Domestic and Industrial, to ensure that safety standards are achieved and sustained?
Note that every single fail-safe circuit can easily be shorted out, back to very initial (unsafe) designs. Routine inspection addresses that criminal tendency, with sanctions applicable to flouting installations and installers.
Who writes these Standards? Any political hack? In a place like Lagos State, is it likely to be someone like Engr Babatunde Johnson, Engr Joe Igbokwe, Engr Johnson Olabisi or the likes of MC Oluomo? Your guess is as good as mine.
Part of the problem is that many “technical” people, in their standard survivalist-mode distraction, who should weigh in robustly, don’t even know what I am talking about.
I hope that the, Gov Sanwo-Olu did not waste taxpayers money, cause extra traffic snarl-up visiting the site of this tragedy. We know that he feels bad about the accident(?) like the rest of us. In the circle of Safety Professionals it is said that: “ACCIDENTS DO NOT HAPPEN. THEY ARE CAUSED.”
Sanwo-Olu can do better. He must throw open the relevant Protocols for sunshine ventilation by actual professionals in this field. It would be truly tragic if there are currently none on the books! Former Governor Gbenga Daniel, still a young man by my own reckoning, should bring his experiences at Kresta Laurel to bear on this undertaking. Let him build his team from among his Clients and Competitors. All government participants should be mere observers while they work.
Do we wait for Abuja? No, Lagos should provide undistracted leadership here. Abuja, Port Harcourt and the rest would pick up speed and join up.
Oduche Azih, an Engineer wrote from Lagos.
