Much has been made about the discovery of improvised explosive devices, bombs, and guns in an abandoned Lagos building belonging to the Bayelsa State Government that the impression could be created that the ownership of the building was more important that the import of the discovery.
.
Terrorists and other criminals find comfort in abandoned buildings. We had so warned in an editorial earlier in the year about the waste and illegal uses of abandoned buildings, many of them belonging to governments.
.
Abandoned buildings pose a combination of risks.
.
Their use for criminal activities is only one of them.
.
There are hundreds of thousands of uncompleted or abandoned buildings in Lagos and our other towns and cities, some on the verge of collapsing.
.
They belong to federal, state, local governments, corporations, or individuals.
.
In the case of governments, the buildings form part of a bigger national malaise of unplanned projects, their poor funding, and supervision. At the individual level, ambitious developers who run out of funds, die, or are otherwise incapacitated also account for abandoned buildings.
.
If construction stops, within days, the building is stealthily occupied, first at nights, and later, it becomes a rooming house for all kinds of characters. Illegal immigrants, vandals, vagrants and criminal elements find abandoned buildings useful as bases for their nefarious activities.
.
They are hardly challenged. Abandoned buildings