The Gwarinpa, Abuja collapsed building; what caused it?

Nigeria is not a real place, you can die like a chicken anytime in Nigeria. Now I really understand the “Japa” gospel: most people relocating out of Nigeria are not just doing that for the sake of greener pastures, most are relocating for the sake of their safety and security. It is today that I understood better.

The apartment you rented to dwell with your family can collapse and bury you alive inside it at any time because it is possible that the builders maneuvered their way through the development control agencies and erected a structure that was not legally approved or suitable for that location. Incidents like this occur regularly in Lagos and it occurred today in Abuja.

On my way home this afternoon, just five minutes away to my house and I saw vehicles making U-turns by the Hmedix mall on 4th Avenue, Gwarinpa, I saw ambulances driving past me at full speed, I saw policemen, civil defence, road safety and other law enforcement agents mounting road and controlling traffic, there was a lot of confusion and commotion which was quite unusual. I asked one of the police officers controlling traffic what was going on, and after much hesitation, he told me that a multi-storey shopping plaza that is still under construction along the road just collapsed and many people lost their lives.

I packed by the Hmedix mall to go see for myself, it was a terrible sight. Some people that were lucky to be excavated alive were brought out without limbs. I have never seen anything like that.

It is more ironic that this kind of thing could happen in Abuja,” a whole of Abuja”; the capital city, the seat of power. From the location where the incident occurred to Aso rock villa should be less than a twenty minutes drive.

The first question that came to mind was; “Who approved the building of this structure? Which Director in the Federal Capital Development Agency (FCDA) or development control approved this building, or was the building erected by the contractors without getting all the appropriate approvals? If so , why didn’t the development control seal up the building for illegal structure? These questions are begging for answers so we can get to the root of this tragedy that occurred today in the Federal Capital Territory.

If you are quite familiar with 4th Avenue, Gwarinpa where the incident took place, you will know that the place that structure is situated is quite sloppy and you don’t need to have a degree in structural or civil engineering or building mechanics to know that for a gigantic structure of that nature to mount comfortably in a sloppy land like that it will need a lot of reinforcement if not it will only be a ticking bomb waiting to explode as it did exploded today.

We can only thank God that the building was not yet completed before it collapsed or it had not yet been commissioned for commercial use when it collapsed, if not it would have been more tragic than this.

Cutting corners have cost a lot of innocent lives in Nigeria. Builders need to stop cutting corners or stop paying bribes to get illegal structures approved by government agencies. If a location is been accessed and it is said that it will be only suitable for a two-storey building to be mounted, please build a two-storey or even less, do not try to build more than two-storey so as to maximize more profit; it is a huge risk and the development control should be demolishing building of such or be sealing it up despite whoever owns it, this is how we can safeguard lives and properties.

The lives that were lost today were lost because of the carelessness of the builders, corruption of development control officials, greed and ineptitude of government agencies and we can do much better.