“Nobody is certain what happened here, but we have seen poor construction as evidence, by what I have just shown you. The concrete was bad and a lot of the steels you see on site have totally dissociated from the concrete.”
Danladi Mattawal, Director General, Nigerian Building and Road Research Institute (NBRRI), has called for the immediate arrest of the owner and engineers of the collapsed building in Abuja.
He stated this while addressing journalists at the site of the incident at the weekend, noting that the incident must be investigated.
He said: “The port of call now is to arrest the owner of the building and put him behind bars; then the engineers, the architects and all the construction workers. Let there be a proper investigation for us to set an example for the future and avoid a repeat in the future.”
He alleged that those involved in mixing the concrete compromised on standards, judging by the rods pulled out from the rubble.
His words: “We have seen a lot of fresh concrete. We have learnt that the building was abandoned for about 15 years and has just been revisited for construction. We have the Director of Development Control here and I have asked him whether the building was not marked for demolition, as the building had stayed for a long time before construction started on it again. The place should be revisited and the structural integrity of the building should be studied.”
Mattawal explained that that elevated structure was constructed for a specified purpose, and explained that it was wrong to increase the number of floors without recourse to the design.
He said: “Nobody is certain what happened here, but we have seen poor construction as evidence, by what I have just shown you. The concrete was bad and a lot of the steels you see on site have totally dissociated from the concrete.”
