The international child charity, Plan International, has called on the Lagos state government to investigate how a three-storey building collapsed on Wednesday, trapping dozens of school children under rubble.
The building in Ita-faaji area of Lagos Island had tenants on its ground floor and a school on its upper two floors.
Classes were ongoing when the building collapsed around 10:00am on Wednesday.
Casualty figures are yet to be harmonised, but rescuers managed to extract some 43 people by Thursday morning.
The country director of Plan International Nigeria, Hussaini Abdu, said the incident highlights “urgent need for all relevant stakeholders to take urgent actions on issues of safety in schools across the country.”
The charity said an inquiry into the incident must “ensure that all persons found culpable for dereliction of duties are punished, according to the laws of the country.”
Nigeria endorsed the Safe School Declaration in March 2018, and stakeholders have been calling on ministries of education, women affairs and social development, as well as state and local government authorities to put framework in place to help implement the declaration nationwide.
