•Trapped workers struggle to jump down as fire guts high-rise building in Lagos on Tuesday
Survivors of the Tuesday’s fire outbreak at Afriland Towers in Lagos have blamed the incident on slow emergency response. This is just as the death toll has risen to ten.
The six-storey building, located on Broad Street, Lagos Island, houses several corporate offices, reports Daily Trust.
United Capital Plc, which occupies the third and fourth floors of the building, confirmed yesterday that six of its employees died in the incident.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) had confirmed that it lost two assistant directors and two managers to the incident.
During the incident, many occupants of the building were reportedly trapped, with some jumping from windows to escape the inferno.
The institute of safety professionals yesterday called on governments and businesses to prepare for the emerging realities in high-rise building maintenance with the fast-paced adoption of alternative energy sources.
Some of the survivors of the incident, who spoke to our correspondent yesterday, described the emergency response as “slow and inadequate.”
They alleged that the initial response to the fire was woefully “inadequate”, saying that emergency services took too long to arrive at the scene.
They also claimed that the response time of building safety officers was equally slow.
One of the survivors, who spoke to our correspondent on condition of anonymity, said that the first responders were area boys who were assisted by some workers.
Another survivor, who simply identified himself simply as Taiwo, said: “We were on our own for a long time. People were jumping from the building, and we were trying to help them, but the emergency services were nowhere to be found.”
A cleaner in the building, who also survived the incident, said she was trapped inside the building and had thought that she was going to die.
“But luckily, some people outside helped me escape. If not for them, I would not have been alive today,” she said.
Another survivor also stated: “This tragedy could have been avoided if the emergency services had responded quickly. We need to learn from this and make sure it never happens again.”
Safety professionals harp on high-rise building maintenance
Speaking to our correspondent yesterday, the chairman of the Institute of Safety Professionals of Nigeria (ISPON), Olusola Ogunleye, stressed the need to prepare for emerging realities in high-rise building maintenance with the fast-paced adoption of alternative energy sources.
He said the impact of the fire incident would have been minimised with “an internal first responder system.”
He said the ISPON had set up an investigation team to assess the incident and the extent of damage.
He stated, “For me, this is just one of the several risks associated with high-rise buildings, especially with our changing energy profile in Nigeria. We must understand that we are moving from the traditional power supply in Nigeria, most businesses and residential homes are increasingly going to private power systems like solar inverters and other forms of inverters.
“So, businesses are relying more on inverter systems and this will not stop, it will increase. These are emerging realities. We need to start paying attention to the safety systems that must go with these systems.
“The truth is that our hydropower systems and the regular power from the public management system which include apart from structures and facilities like the water system and all that, we don’t have a fire management system as to personnel that are dedicatedly employed, specifically for fire management for that facility management system, which would include, apart from structures and facilities like the water system and all that.
“We must have a fire management system as to personnel that are dedicatedly employed specifically for fire management for that facility.
“And now, if they don’t have any, do they have any existing MoU with any facility that is around them to be able to respond to them? Yes, they may not have, but people around them may be able to have an existing facility.
“So, these are issues. The provision of these provides an opportunity to strengthen what is not available now in that system. And the personnel trained, the people that are running the businesses starting from that, do they have because fire in a high-rise building is different from fire in ordinary buildings.”
According to him, with multiple floors in a high-rise building, it could be difficult to manage a fire incident without an effective system in place.
Ogunleye added, “Number one, you have the risk of multiple floors with the identity of people and businesses in there. So, the kind of measures that we put in place will be different. And for me, in terms of protection, especially fire, one of your surest bets is the training of your occupants and personnel.
“If they are trained and they know what to do, it makes it a lot, a lot easier. In fact, some staff would have taken more proactive action on looking for the public service fire system. So for me as a nation and as a state and even as East Poor, we would also look at this as an opportunity to begin to focus more on first the emerging risk of alternative power supply like inverters.”
Lagos denies late emergency response allegation
The Lagos State Government yesterday denied that the allegation of late emergency response.
It explained that the incident was triggered by a spark from inverter batteries located in the basement of the building.
The explanation was given at a press conference by the Director-General of the Lagos State Safety Commission, Mr. Lanre Mojola.
The press conference was attended by the Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Gbenga Omotoso; the Director-General of the Lagos State Fire and Rescue Service, Mrs. Margaret Adeseye and the Director of the Lagos State Ambulance Service (LASAMBUS), Dr Wuraola Makinde.
Mojola and Adeseye attributed the fatalities to smoke inhalation by occupants trying to exit the building during the fire.
Mojola explained that the smoke spread rapidly across all floors of the high-rise.
“At 1:30 p.m., we received a distress call and quickly mobilised. On the ground were LASAMBUS, LASEMA, and the Safety Commission. The Director of Fire went straight into the building to ascertain where the fire was coming from and discovered it was from the basement.
“It was found that it was caused by the inverter batteries in the basement. The smoke from the fire quickly spread through the basement and went up across all the floors,” he said.
He added that Afriland Towers had functioning safety systems in place.
“The tower had adequate fire rescue equipment, exit points, and an alarm system. The alarm was working at the time of the incident. People panicked, anxious to get out of the building, while inhaling the smoke, which resulted in casualties. No one died from burns caused by the fire,” Mojola said.
The DG urged owners of high-rise buildings in Lagos to obtain proper certification from the government, assuring that the state remains committed to protecting lives and property.
Also speaking, Adeseye said her team arrived at the scene within 20 minutes of receiving the emergency call.
“The response was timely. We received a call at 1:38 p.m. and arrived at the scene at 1:56 p.m. We found that there were sympathisers trying to assist the victims to escape the building. We quickly tried to rescue the occupants. Our preliminary investigation also revealed the cause of the fire to be from the inverter in the basement.
“There were three exits, smoke detectors, and a hose. The alarm was ringing, but the victims were so anxious to get out that some tried to force their way through. They could have escaped through the exits; probably some were waiting for people to come and rescue them. The victims died from smoke inhalation,” she said.
Federal Fire Service probes incident
The Federal Fire Service said it had launched a full-scale investigation into the fire outbreak, according to the Controller-General of the Service, Samuel Adeyemi Olumode, in a statement yesterday by the Service’s Public Relations Officer, DCF Paul Abraham.
He said preliminary findings pointed to the inverter room as the possible source of the inferno.
He ordered the immediate deployment of a specialist investigation team to determine both the direct and remote causes of the incident, including the state of the building’s fire safety systems, maintenance culture, and compliance with regulations.
“The findings of this investigation will be made public, and every recommendation will be implemented without delay,” Adeyemi assured.
Beyond the probe, the FFS chief announced the creation of a nationwide task force on fire safety compliance. The unit will audit both public and private buildings, enforce safety standards, sanction erring facilities, train facility managers, and strengthen partnerships with regulatory agencies.
Adeyemi stressed that Nigeria must shift from reactive firefighting to preventive enforcement, noting that installing fire equipment is not enough without regular maintenance and staff training.
“We must move into a regime of accountability, audits, sanctions, and compliance if tragedies like this are to be avoided,” he added.
Adeyemi prayed for the repose of the departed and comfort for their loved ones.
The Service also urged building owners, banks, corporate organisations and government agencies to urgently review their fire safety readiness.
This, according to him, includes securing inverter and generator rooms, keeping exits clear, ensuring alarms function properly and training staff in emergency response.
NLC blames FG, Lagos govt
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), yesterday took a swipe at the federal government and the Lagos State Government over the fire outbreak.
It alleged that the negligence of both governments contributed to how the workers at the corporate organisations in the building lost their lives.
The deputy president of the NLC, Comrade Adewale Adeyanju, in a condolence message to the families of the deceased, said the incident must not be swept aside as mere statistics.
The NLC, while mourning with heavy hearts, described the incident as the “needless loss of lives” in the fire outbreak that engulfed the United Bank for Africa (UBA) building called Afriland Building on Lagos Island.
“Our grief is further deepened by the fresh memory of another devastating inferno that only a few days earlier consumed a long stretch of buildings, shops, and warehouses in the same axis of Lagos Island, destroying livelihoods and goods valued in billions of Naira.
“This is while Nigerians are already struggling to survive the harshest economic conditions thus far in our history as a result of the neoliberal economic policies of the government.
“These fires are totally not accidents of fate. They are products of systemic rot, institutional negligence, and the reckless disregard for safety rules and human dignity that have become the hallmark of governance in Nigeria.
“What we are witnessing is not merely fire; it is the fire of corruption, the fire of inefficiency, the fire of collapsed institutions, and the fire of state abandonment of its fundamental duty; the protection of lives and property.
“The ashes of burnt buildings are testimonies of state failure. The tears of widows, orphans, and workers remind us that the struggle for a just society is not an abstraction but a necessity,” Adeyanju said.
The labour leader argued that the incident showed that the huge taxes and levies being collected by both the Lagos government and the Federal Government from the State are not judiciously used.
He argued, “We are not saying that such incidents do not occur in other climes but what baffles us here was the sight of some Nigerian workers jumping out of windows on high rise buildings for fear of their lives.
“One wonders if there were any significant safety precautions in designing and managing the building and whether the workers were adequately trained and prepared for such eventualities while whether internal Crisis Management teams were put in place to act as first responders to such incidents before it occurred.
“We must ask: why do we continue to witness the same cycle of tragedies? Why are corporate institutions allowed to compromise safety standards without accountability? Why do government agencies budget billions annually yet arrive empty-handed in the hour of need?
“The answer lies in the anti-people logic of neoliberal governance; where profit is placed above people, where safety budgets are looted, where institutions meant to protect the poor are hollowed out by corruption, and where the lives of workers and citizens are treated as Pawns and expendables.
“Let us move to a place where the insane pursuit of IGR is made secondary while ensuring that lives and means of livelihood of the majority are protected takes a strong primary position.”
