Building collapse discourse in developing countries has long followed an internal focal approach. The approach frames the menace around deleterious construction practices (e.g. utilization of substandard materials) resulting from individual factors (e.g. developers and building practitioners’ negligence) and administrative challenges (relating to the enforcement of building regulations). This study examined how this diagnosis holds up against evidence systematically collected and forensically analyzed on specific country situations. The study assembled detailed empirical data via interviews and focus group discussions from a range of professionals, including building inspectors, planners, architects and researchers in Ghana and draws on data from various secondary sources. The data was, in turn, interpreted within a critical postcolonial institutional framework. The study found that the internal focal approach to building collapse is largely problematic. Not only does it create a false impression that developing countries have a danger-prone construction culture, but also its intent focus on factors internal to the countries overlooks the systemic underdevelopment conditions which interplay with the internal factors actually create, indeed, maintain and worsen building safety problems in those societies. The study findings challenge not just the way building collapses in developing countries are studied, they also raise issues with the repertoire of interventions that are often proposed for addressing such risks in those parts of the world.