By Charles Ebube – Abuja
In continuation of our community service and respect for life and property, we carried out some further investigation that revealed the need to verify the structure of the ECOWAS Court proposed office in Gudu to know if it is fit for habitation ; without endangering people’s life, because of the rampant building collapse around the country recently.
It will interest the general public to know the history of the particular property located at GUDU Close to the Sharia court with three suspended floors, the building has been abandoned for over 10 years and originally built on sand filled land.
Our correspondent also gathered that the ECOWAS Court took over that building for over 200 million Naira rent for two years despite having her own permanent building in Wuse 2 Abuja FCT bought for her by the President Obasanjo administration under Honorable President of the Court Donli’s administration.
Further investigation reveals that the Gudu building in question was not originally designed to carry the weight of a lift or elevator which has now been installed by breaking the walls of the building which led to a very serious cracks and weakened the structure .
A quick look and research into how suspended building designed to carry a lift or elevator should be constructed reveals that the shaft and pillars designed to carry the weight must be part of the original foundation and buried at the base, with reinforced pillars and columns that must work in harmony with, evenly spread slabs and other units in the building; to avoid building collapse because of the weight of the elevator that vibrates and pull the whole building.
Installing an elevator or lift in a building is not an after thought process as has been done in the proposed ECOWAS Court office in Gudu, which raises serious concerns about safety of life of staff.
We consulted a seasoned Engineer and property developer on the appropriate way to install a lift or elevator and the consequences of circumventing the procedure and he has the following to say in their engineering language.
“Negative effect/impact of introducing a shaft elevator into an existing *4* suspended floor building
1. Total distabilization of; non-uniform load distribution of; and uneven settlement of structural members such as slabs, beams and column points.
2. Disorientation of the existing roof plan and design
3. Demolition of existing partition walls and columns between floors.”
The obvious resultant effect is building collapse since there is no proper foundation to carry the weight of the shaft and elevator mechanism. ”
Investigation revealed that two stop work orders has been issued in the past by Abuja Development Control but was mysteriously evacuated despite the health and safety concern that the building cannot stand the weight of the materials been used for partitioning and over 140 staff of the Court without imminent anticipated collapse of the building.
Must we wait for life of people to be lost when it can be avoided now?
Also of serious concerns are the further alterations and other facilities been introduced in the property without considering the safety consequences. For example, walls are still been broken to lay IT cables, installation of industrial generator and borehole on the same site.
Time may not permit to discuss the bogus inflated contracts categorised under emergency procurement to circumvent bidding procedures in the favour of the interested group who are benefiting from the contract.
Our whistle blower for example alleged that a 1000 kva( One thousand KVA) generator manufacture by CAT was allegedly purchased and procure for over S400,000.00 ( Four Hundred Thousand United States Dollars), a borehole drilled at over N3.7 (Three million and seven hundred thousand naira) and laying of IT cables contract awarded for over S400,000.00(over four hundred thousand United States Dollars) amongst many other inflated and over padded contracts done secretly to circumvent ECOWAS procurement procedures. This are all community tax payers money been wasted in a project that is not needed.
We are making a clarion call to the ECOWAS authority through the President of the Commission , the GIABA institution and the Nigerian authority and EFCC with ICPC to laise together to investigate this allegations through looking at the books for the project , under the direction of the Director of Administration and Finance of the ECOWAS Court and the management to put an end to the wasteful spending of community tax payers money on a project that is not viable.
This is a clarion call on the Nigerian Society of Engineers by a way of giving back to the community to sponsor and conduct integrity test on the building in question to safe life of the ECOWAS Court Staff who over 95% of them are not interested in relocating to the proposed Gudu office.
Our medium do hope the appropriate authorities will do the needful for the community and avoid another imminent building collapse which may have catastrophic effect on the ECOWAS community if it is not checkmated timeously now.
This our own contribution to the community service in the bid to safe innocent lives of ECOWAS Court Staff some who are Nationals from other ECOWAS community and non Nigerian.
