It’s been eight months and one week since a failed elevator killed Vwaere Diaso, a medical doctor at the General Hospital, Odan, Lagos State. FIJ can confirm that the elevator has neither been fixed nor replaced.
The workers who reside in the 10-storey building, where the elevator is stationed, have been using the stairs since August 2023, when the doctor died and the state government sealed the elevator area.
When our reporter visited the hospital on Thursday, she found that the elevator area had been cordoned off with a wooden structure carrying a paper signpost.
The signpost bore the logo of the Lagos State Government and had phrases like “Restricted Area,” “Construction Site,” and “No Unauthorised Access.”
The signpost also had a phone number that showed the name “Lagos Safety Commission” when FIJ searched it on Truecaller, a caller identification app.
Although there was no worker or machinery in sight, close to the entrance of the doctors’ quarters was a big logo of Julius Berger, a leading construction company in Nigeria.
Close to the logo was a signpost indicating that the company was the contractor in charge of the “Rehabilitation Works at Doctor’s Quarters General Hospital Odan Lagos”. The duration written on the signpost was 32 weeks, from February 2024 to September 2024.