Abasifreke Effiong
The eight member commission of enquiry set up by the Akwa Ibom State government to investigate the cause(s) of the December 10, 2016, Reigners' Bible Church building collapse will soon round off its investigations.
On Tuesday January 31, 2017, the Retired Justice Umoekeye Essang's led commission undertook fact-finding tour of the site of the incident. The tour was to allow professional assessment of the collapsed structure.
Preceding that visit, parties involved in the processes of construction of the building had testified before the commission. These were happening side-by-side with the burials of victims of the disaster. At least six of victims have been buried so far. On Thursday, January 26, Emem was buried at the cemetery in Mbiokporo, Nsit Ibom local government. The next day, Ernest, a staff of government house, Uyo, was interred at Ikot Essien, Nsit Atai local government. And on Saturday January 28, Daniel was buried in Ikot Edo, Ididep Ibiono, Ibiono Ibom local government area. Many more will be buried in weeks.
The enquiry has given a lead into the true perspectives of events and human factors that contributed to the monumental loss. Despite this, the tenor of the arguments in public domain, some of which are bereft of logic, has deliberately been tilted against Apostle Akan Weeks.
Sadly, everyone else, including casualties of the incident has been blamed for attending the event. Haba! What a society ours has become!
Beyond these twists and sweet sentiments, this piece discusses the testimonies of major actors in the process of construction of that building, as given at the commission of enquiry. This discussion shall help to decouple sweet sentiments from facts.
Without following any specific order, let's discuss the testimony given by Uyo Capital City Development Authority,UCCDA. UCCDA is empowered by law to approve and regulate property development within Uyo capital city. This power includes the right to notify, pull-down, and enforce stoppage of work at any site or on any structure which the owner fails to comply with statutory requirements covering development within the 10 kilometre radius which forms its area of operations.
Testifying on behalf of UCCDA, the Chief Town Planner, Mr Effiong Akpan said, "the area (where the church was built) was a ravine. The authority marked 'Stop Work' on the building at the foundation level on March 16, 2013.
"We marked it again on January 6, 2016. We gave the church a 21 day ultimatum to demolish the building on August 16, 2016. We were unable to pull-down the structure because of lack of logistics, security and heavy duty equipment".
From the above submission, one can without ill, say that the Reigners’ Bible Church building was an illegal structure.
Akan Weeks said in his testimony that he paid N300,000 for the processing of his building documents with UCCDA.
"They (UCCDA) demanded N300,000 which I gave to them in my office. One Etido Udo collected the money. No receipt was given to me at the instance but I was surprised after the December 10, incident, while I was still in the hospital, I had a call and somebody said he was from UCCDA; one Etido Udo.
"He asked if he could speak with me, when my wife picked the call. He insisted to see me and I told him I was not in town. He said he wanted to give me my church documents. I told him to reach my counsel. They returned my building documents and the N300,000 through one Mrs. Ima David, a lawyer; to my lawyer Ini Ekpo on January 4, 2017 at the premises of the court".
Granted that the building was an illegal structure as averred by UCCDA; the authority had the mandate of the law to have pulled it down. But the authority said it lacked "logistics" to pull-down the building. This is a cheap lie. One would immediately recall the demolition of bigger structures as the filling station allegedly owned by Prince Ukpong Akpabio, that was situated in-between Qua Iboe Church, 112 Nwaniba road, and Power City; demolition of fuel station and residential houses along airport road in Uruan; and the decimation of structures and wares at the regional market at Nung Oku Ibesikpo, undertaken by UCCDA. These happened between June 2015 and August last year. Did UCCDA need a special set of equipment to demolish Reigners' Church building?.
Furthermore, Akan Weeks had established that he paid money for the processing of his building documents to Etido Udo. But the money he gave for that purpose and the building documents were returned on January 4, 2017 by Mrs Ima David. Till now, UCCDA has not disclaimed Etido Udo nor has it denied the statement that N300,000 was returned to Akan Weeks.
It is obvious that criminal negligence on the part of UCCDA created a vent for that occurrence. If the authority had demolished the structure, having known as its representative told the commission that the area was a ravine; the sad history December 10, 2016, recorded would have been averted.
The second confession which might lead the public to the meat of the incident is that of the Manager of White Steel Integrated Services, Mr. Idorenyin White.
On Sunday, December 11, 2016, a day after the collapse of the church building, he granted an interview to The Nigerian Pulse Newspaper. He said “the fault is not from us- the fault is from the civil work”.
He continued, “On Friday before the ordination, the building had an issue and I called the site manager, Arch. Anietie and showed him that the building had a problem. He saw it with me and informed me that Friday that after the programme on Saturday the building will be reinforced and apart from that the building was under construction which they even bring experienced engineers to come and look at it. There was a scaffold in the middle and I told the building committee that the scaffold should not be removed but there was a lot of quarrel between us and the church because of that scaffold. Even the Hensek engineers said the scaffold should not be removed until everything is completed. The construction was 50 per cent done, and the roof was on that 50 per cent so the roof was heavy.
“The steel was OK because one Engr. Steve designed the steel and we were working on that. The problem about that building was just the civil work and moreover that building is about 5meters and some places were more than 5meters column interval and a tiny beam in the middle and the building was not filled. So during this one week programme that the building was filled by compacting the inside of it with a compacting machine, I went straight to tell Anietie who is the site manager not to compact the building since the thing was shaking the column and the columns had no support. It was a single column and a side beam and the side beam was not fully cast because of plan to construct a gallery.
“The side beam in the middle, some places were more than 6meters, some places 5.5meters because of the terrain. So the side beam in the middle was small and the walls of the building were compacted in one week time”.
Four salient points were raised in the above submissions. One, the total weight of the roof rested on a 50 per cent block work. Two, the column interval were supposed to be at a 5 meter interval each, but in some places it was more than 5 meters interval. Three, there was no uniformity in the size of the beams. The side beams in the middle were small-perhaps too small for the weight of the roof. And four, the roof of the building would only stand with the support of the scaffold.
These are interesting revelations which can give even a layman an idea that experts who undertook the job, who should have known better, may have overlooked a number of details. How else would one explain the fact that the roof engineer spotted the inconsistencies in the sizes of the columns and beams, and the negative contributory impact such would have on the overall building?
All over the world, laymen depend solely on pieces of advice from professionals on issues outside their area of expertise. In the aviation sector Pilots rely on meteorologists for weather forecast. It is always a fatal experience when a pilot is misinformed or under-briefed by the meteorologist. The owner of the church must be a layman in civil engineering, thus as would be expected, he depended on expert opinion- both of the civil and roof engineers. Regrettably, White said he told the church building committee not to remove the scaffold but his directive was rebuffed. Thus, the heat of the discourse has been, who ordered the removal of the scaffold.
Let’s assume that the writer of this piece ordered the removal of the scaffold. And he did that for convenience. No such hungry man has ever lived, who would be told by his physician that a sauce before him has been poisoned-that he will die with his guests and household if he eats the sauce, but will still go ahead to eat. Nothing is more important to man than his life. Not convenience, not his prestige. Thus, it’s simple logic that whosoever ordered or removed the scaffold would not have contemplated that - if the man with the best idea contracted to do the job had properly briefed them. Again, a man of experience would have had the foresight that the roof would cave-in and destroy everything he laboured for if the fulcrum was taken-off, and would have prevented every undertaking within that premises. Akan Weeks had told the commission that he was “never in a hurry to use the auditorium or put any contractor under pressure. I am with the receipt I booked for a venue”.
Following through all of these, I believe the Reigners’ Bible Church incident was not Akan Weeks’ creation. He is merely a victim of a haphazard job.
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You cannot conclude without answering your research question - Who ordered the removal of the scaffold?
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