At the weekend, residents of Gwarinpa estate protested what they perceived as improper handling and approval of a two-story building that collapsed in Abuja more than a week earlier.
Numerous workers at the scene were rescued and hurried to a nearby hospital, but three people have now been officially confirmed dead.
The structure, which was still being built, crumpled into a heap of concrete slabs.
Briefing reporters on the development, Chairman of ADKAN Estate Residents Association, Kabir Akanbi called for the arrest and prosecution of Federal Housing Authority (FHA) officials that approved and monitored the collapsed building.
Akanbi urged the Minister of Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Malam Muhammad Bello to ensure the review of the original design of Abuja Model City II plan, Gwarinpa.
He said the return to the original design as set in the Abuja Model City II plan when the Estate was first conceived will help avert future building collapse.
Akanbi said: “The heart-rending images of human beings buried under collapsed buildings and bodies being pulled from rubbles have dominated the media space since the turn of this year and have assailed our collective consciousness. We join the rest of the global community in praying for the repose of the souls of the departed and hope the families find the fortitude to bear these losses.
“The collapse of the Storey building on the 6th Avenue in Gwarinpa, Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory represents the culmination of the continuing trend of illegally converting buildings and green areas purposely designed as residences and public utilities for commercial purposes.
“Government officials responsible for the approval and monitoring of the collapsed building should be arrested and prosecuted.
“We have observed the recent increase of these commercial buildings all around us contrary to the original design as set in the Abuja Model City II plan when our Estate was first conceived. We have equally been grappling with the numerous costs of these forced conversions such as the traffic log jams, we now experience on a daily basis, the increase in insecurity, which naturally follows commercialization as criminals, suddenly see opportunities for nefarious acts.
“The collapse is the ugly and extreme manifestation of the ravenous appetite for commercialization that has taken hold within our Estate in recent years and which, apparently has neither respect for legal boundaries nor peaceable habitation.
The Residents Association of Adkan Estate hereby seizes this inauspicious but most fitting occasion to demand and call for a return to the original design as set in the Abuja Model City II plan when our Estate was first conceived.
“It is time to stop congesting and distorting the Estate in the name of pecuniary gains!! It is time to stop putting the lives of our residents are at risk for monetary benefits!! No gain in money or real estate is worth a single human life, how much more the multiple ones and other severe injuries we saw in the recent building collapse”.
He demands that all commercial buildings under construction along the 6th Avenue be stopped forthwith, adding that there is an urgent need to conduct Structural Integrity Tests on the existing buildings to forestall a similar catastrophe.
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