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Lagos conducts DNA test to identify victims of collapsed building
Modupe Shodeinde
Lagos State Government has started DNA tests on relatives of some deceased victims of the collapsed building at Ikoyi.
The state government through the Commissioner of Information and Strategy, Gbenga Omotoso, had on Friday directed relatives of the dead victims to go to the Infectious Disease Hospital (IDH), Yaba for the identification of their deceased family members.
He said: “People can go to IDH Yaba, from 4:00pm (on Friday) to identify the bodies of their loved ones. For bodies that may be very difficult to identify, we are going to be conducting DNA tests for such bodies to be identified.
The Nation reports that over 20 bereaved family members were seen at the mortuary section of the IDH.
Some of them said they were waiting for the officials of the mortuary section to tell them the process of identifying the bodies of their family members.
The families were given forms to fill. On submitting the form, the officials called each deceased family into the main building to collect their samples for the test.
“They just took my sample and told me to go. They promised to get back to us. Of course, our addresses and contact numbers are in the form we filled. We hope the process will be fast,” a relative said.
According to The Nation, the search-and-rescue exercise may be declared called off today.
Meanwhile, the Lagos State House of Assembly has called on Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu to compensate the bereaved families. The House also urged the governor to direct relevant agencies to ensure that all requirements for buildings as stipulated in extant laws of the state are strictly adhered to.
Speaker of the House Mudasiru Obasa, while reacting to a motion, described the tragedy as an unfortunate development.
“We should exercise patience before passing comments until the findings of the committee looking into it unravels the cause.
“The status of the investors should be checked, and we should sympathise with families that lost loved ones and the government should compensate them. If the agencies had done the needful, we would not have this sad occurrence,” he said.
