T was a disappointing evening for residents of Aso Savings Road Katampe in Kubwa, Abuja yesterday. After keeping vigil and praying fervently for safe rescue of a favorite gateman known by everyone as “Baba” and his relatives who were trapped in the rubble of the two-storey building that collapsed at about 11pm on Thursday, his lifeless body was finally pulled at about 7 pm.
Residents of the area had been jolted by the earth-shaking incident and the accompanying noise that sounded like a bomb blast. A resident of the neighbouring building, Mma Chinedu, said that she and her husband were relaxing in her sitting room while her children slept beside the window in the next room when they felt the ground shake, followed by a heavy sound and their house was immediately filled with dust.
Not knowing what was going on, they rushed out of their apartment with their children only to find that the uncompleted plaza being built next to their house had collapsed.
The debris from the collapsed building had entered into theirs and would have crushed her apartment, particularly the room where her two children were asleep, but her neighbours’ cars parked next to their window took the brunt of the collapsed structure.
“I started shouting Jesus and calling my neighbours who were trapped in their flats,” she said. Adding that young men around the area eventually arrived to help the neighbours open their doors and to safety.
Chinedu added: “It was as we were helping my neighbours that we started hearing cries for help from the victims that were trapped inside the collapsed building.” Immediately the cries for help began, the young men around realised that the artisans that had been tiling the building that evening were still around and were trapped in the last floor. So they broke up the roof and rescued three persons who were immediately rushed to the hospital by officials of National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), whom they accused of refusing to assist the victims even after they were called.
Neighbours’ bravery
Another neighbour, Yakubu Anaga, said after they had assisted in rescuing the three artisans from the top floor of the building, they went to NEMA and asked for their help, because they believed that more people might be trapped, but the agency refused working without its excavators and tool. Anaga said: “About two hours later, I started hearing another man crying for help. I went to NEMA and they refused to help. I was so angry that I almost fought some of them but my neighbours held me back. I decided to take matters into my own hands.
“I went towards the voice of the trapped victim and asked him to continue calling. I found a small hole between two fallen pillars and started crawling inside on my stomach, digging my way in with my hands.
“It was very tight and I was scared because my daughter is very young and I didn’t want to die and leave her behind. But a dying man needed my help. After digging for a while inside the dust, I found his head, dug around and freed it.
“I eventually freed his upper body and arms, but I was too tired to continue. My neighbours pulled me out and Emeka Ike crawled in. He tried and eventually released one leg but the other was trapped.
“When he too became tired, we pulled him out and a Hausa boy we didn’t even know crawled in. He tried very hard but the man’s leg was trapped.
“We found a rope and tied it around the wood that trapped the man. After that, we pulled the Hausa boy out as he held unto the trapped victim, and they came out together.”
The collapsed structure
Emeka Ike explained that the building was not designed to carry a two-storey structure.
He said: “The building started as a one-storey shopping plaza. But all of a sudden, they added another floor to it and started demarcating the top floors into one and two bedroom flats.
“A woman complained about two weeks ago to the owner that one of the pillars was cracked. He did not do anything about it but just continued building. “Yesterday afternoon, another pillar by the side cracked again but they ignored it. Even the Baba kept complaining to that man about the structure.
“It got to the point that he started telling the workers to stop bringing in more things into the building because he was worried that it might collapse.
“If you touch the blocks that they were using to build the house, it will melt in your hands because it was not strong.
“People kept complaining but the owner just kept building, and then last night, the beam collapsed in the middle and everything came down with it.”
Anaga explained that four of the building engineers resigned because the owner refused listening to their warnings.
He added: “One of my younger brothers, who is studying mechanical engineering, was working with the foreman. He saw that they were using four bags of cement where they were supposed to use 10 bags. He complained and they fired him.”
Another resident who pleaded anonymity revealed that agents around had informed the neighbours that the owner of the house had already collected about N20 million as rent from prospective shop owners for the ground floor of the building.
Heavily pregnant Mma Chinedu, who was part of the neighbours that had hoped that would be rescued alive, described him as a very good man.
She said: “Baba is very good. Four of his children visited him yesterday afternoon to inform him that they had passed their Koranic school recitation. He was so happy and told us that he would be going home today to visit his family.
“I wish he had left with his children yesterday. Now he is dead with his brother still trapped inside there.”
She further explained that before his death, Baba had put a call to them even as he was trapped, pleading with them to help him.
“Baba called. He said he was trapped, that we should help him, and that was what we were telling the people that were working with the excavators to be careful, but they didn’t listen.
“They brought out the body of the other person and we are worried that Baba might not survive it because he had been there for so long and had stopped calling after those huge excavators started climbing to remove the debris.”
Another neighbour, Nkiruka Ikediala, blamed the collapse of the building on greed. She said the owner knew that his foundation was not meant to carry and additional building and neither was the structure built to withstand more walls that came with the demarcation to turn the ones shopping plaza into blocks of flats.
She said another plaza not far from the collapsed one had been showing signs of collapse as well and the owner just plastered the cracks and painted over them.
“He knows his building is not safe. Now when a crack comes up in the other plaza, he plasters and paints over it.
“It is so bad that he has uninstalled all the air-conditioning units in the building, but he is still building on top of it.”
She added: “If the government wants to save lives from collapsed buildings, they should reward people like Emeka and Anaga that saved those people’s lives.
“If people hear, tomorrow when another building collapses, people will not wait for NEMA but will take matters into their hands to save the lives of the victims.”
NEMA spokesperson, Manzo Ezekiel, in response to the collapsed building, said: “A two-storey uncompleted building collapsed on the night of Thursday 25th August, 2022
“The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) was alerted about the incident around 1 am this morning.
“The Head of NEMA Abuja Operations Office immediately mobilised First Responders including FCT Emergency Management Agency, Fire Service, Civil Defence (NSCDC) and the Nigerian Police to the site.
“Four persons have been rescued so far. Two other persons are said to yet being trapped under the rubble.
“NEMA rescue team presently at the site coordinating the Response. Equipment deployed are excavators, spraders, cutters, etc. Headquarters team have also been deployed to support.”