As the news of the building collapse at the Gwarinpa Housing Estate in the Federal Capital Territory continues to agitate the minds of members of the public, authorities of the Abuja Metropolitan Management Council have made clarifications on the matter.
Speaking during a press conference on Saturday, Coordinator of Abuja Metropolitan Management Council, AMMC, Umar Shuaibu, and the rescue operation had been coordinated by the FCT administration, which lasted for thirty hours. He said a total of twenty-four persons trapped were rescued, twenty-one persons were rescued alive and three were fatally injured.
On the cause of the collapse, Shauibu stated that there were breaches in the location, the building plan approval, the control and monitoring of the development by the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) with evident criminal inclination by the developer during the construction activities. He further noted that those to be prosecuted for manslaughter at the instance of the Minister of the FCT, Muhammed Musa Bello, are the FHA officer in charge of granting the development permit, as well as another FHA officer whose responsibility it was to monitor the development. Others, he said, the developer of the plot and the engineer supervising the development for the developer.
On causes of the collapse, Director of Department of Development Control at the AMMC, Muthar Galadima, said “It was discovered that three major foundations were revealed to have been placed on an unconsolidated soil formation and partly on a rocky base that moved, thereby resulting in the slide that caused the collapse”, in addition to unacceptable concrete strength amongst other factors.
The Coordinator of the AMMC, Shuaibu, also assured that going forward, the Council will take measures aimed at forestalling the challenges associated with building collapse. He particularly thanked the media for their unflinching commitment to factual, balanced and unbiased reportage of events in the housing sector, especially regarding the Gwarinpa incident.
