Rports that tragedy was averted on Monday at Permanent Site of the Federal Polytechnic, Oko , Orumba North when a section of a multiple storey building for the Public Administration under construction sank into the ground. The building contract was worth several millions of Naira.
Workers were not at site when the multi million building collapsed. Students were also not reading under the building undergoing construction.
A student eyewitness and another indigene of Oko community, who would not want to be mentioned, said the building collapsed by 3 am at the Permanent Site or Extension site of the Polytechnic, Oko.
The Building was meant for lecture halls for students and offices for lecturers but collapsed suddenly this morning probably due to overload.
‘’ The building collapsed this morning about 3 am. It is the Public Administration building of the Polytechnic, and the building contractor is the Rector’s brother or family friend. This is the way they give contract to people without experience at bloated prizes.
‘’They are now saying no building collapsed , but never imagined it happened behind our compound and if not for the terrain we would have just crossed over to get the entire photos but the photos we got from our building is clear. We heard the loud noise from the collapse and wanted to go there but the Rector deployed security people to barricade everywhere.
The source continued: ‘’ If no building collapsed why preventing students from free movement? If no building collapsed why asking all students to vacate the school premises and why are they stopping a team from Anambra materials testing lab from gaining access to the site. They have brought Evacuators since 7 am struggling to evacuate the debris and claim they knocked it down whereas the building is already endangered’’.
Confirming the allegation of the two who did not want their names mentioned, a community leader Ernest Nwankwo said, ‘’ this is fraud and deception. A building collapsed and the Rector and the team are trying to cover up the collapse and pretend nothing happened. They asked us to go back when we got to the road to the building collapse site. The government officials too were asked to go back as they used security people and anti cult to harass people who wanted to see the site. The building is at risk because of the collapse of its section. And if the error is hiding , one day students would be there and the entire structure would collapse’.
When contacted , the Public Relations Officer of the Institution , Obini Onuchukwu struggled to cover up the collapse as he initially said there was no building collapse in the institution but when informed on the building and time of collapse , he said the management pulled down the section to effect corrections and could not be said to be a collapse.
When reminded that security barricaded the entire zone and harassed students going that area from gaining access and even asked the staff and students to go home, he said the action was taken in good faith as the management deliberately asked the students to give way to avoid being funny.
‘’Management pulled it down to effect corrections’’, said Obini.
It would be recalled that 3 buildings have collapsed in Federal Polytechnic Oko extension site and environs in the last 1 month.
A private hostel Ndiagu village Oko building which was at the roofing level but has not been roofed caved in recently about 3 pm after a heavy down pour. The survivor who gave the information was rushed to an unknown hospital due to heavy shock.
After that another multiple storey building collapsed at Amaokpala , also Orumba North council area without a casualty.
Chairman of Orumba North local government area, Chief Okey Enekwe had blamed the building collapses on shoddy job and using of inferior and low quality materials not meant for building a storey building for the construction.
‘’the quality of the work is poor and the rods are not enough to carry 3 storey building.
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