Omeiza Ajayi, Abuja

Following the collapse of a three-storey building around Hamza Abdullahi Way, Kubwa, Abuja in the early hours of Friday in which one death was recorded, Federal Capital Territory FCT Minister, Malam Muhammadu Musa Bello has ordered an integrity test on all highrise buildings in the area.

The collapsed building, according to eyewitnesses, was being converted from a shopping mall to a residential apartment, with the developer adding at least two more floors on an already existing structure which did not have the weight to carry the new additions.

Kubwa, Abuja’s largest suburban town has recently witnessed the conversion of residential buildings to commercial centres and vice versa.

The building which caved in in the early hours of Friday was still under construction, but had some artisans living inside.

As of 2pm on Friday, five of the seven persons earlier trapped under the rubble had been rescued by the disaster management team of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps NSCDC and sister agencies who took the victims to the General Hospital in Kubwa.

A combined team of personnel of the Abuja Metropolitan Management Council AMMC, Federal Roads Maintenance Agency, FERMA, Federal Road Safety Corps, FRSC, the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC as well as the National Emergency Management Agency NEMA among others were on ground for the rescue operations.

“It happened around 11.30pm yesterday. We were seven people sleeping here. One person slept at the boys quarter, another slept in the security post, and then the remaining five slept in the main building. Five of us have been rescued. It remains a security man, and the man that brought me here,” one of the survivors told journalists.

Giving an update on the incident, Senior Special Assistant on Monitoring, Inspection and Enforcement to the FCT Minister, Attah Ikharo said officials have retrieved a body of one of the occupants from the rubble.

“The building was initially a shopping mall, but the report we got from residents was that the owner was warned, and at a certain point, it was now being converted to a residential apartment.

“The down was a shopping mall, but they were putting up some blocks of flat on the first and second suspended floors. You cannot alter a shopping mall and convert to a residential building thereby giving it more load than what it was meant to carry,” he noted.

Attah added that the FCT Minister has ordered that tests be carried out on most of the high rise buildings around the area.

He noted that the combined team of security agencies at the scene are currently trailing the owner of the property, who residents suspected may have absconded.

“We have a policy in the FCTA that when a building collapses, the land is forfeited and revoked and the place is converted into a park or garden for residents around the neighbourhood,” he added.

Coordinator, Abuja Metropolitan Management Council AMMC, Umar Shago, blamed the incident on quackery and shady construction works, adding that the FCTA has a policy of subjecting old buildings to integrity test.

Preliminary reports had shown that the building was on a swampy area and that the right materials were not used in its construction.