The Commissioner for Capital City Development and Urban planning, Chief Sunday Elechi Inyima has ordered the occupants of a defective three storey building located at mbokobe area of the metropolis to vacate the premises for their own safety, noting that their continued stay in the premises is dangerous to the safety of their lives and property.
Inyima, while inspecting the property on Wednesday, lamented why the occupants of the building has refused to vacate the premises one month after the building was sealed by the ministry and vacation order issued to them for safety purpose.
"We've come for evacuation taskforce. We sealed this place on the 20th of June 2024 and told the people to leave because we came in and noticed a very high level of defect in the building. This is a three storey building and when you this kind of crack and defect, someone is trying to carry out repairs in a quackery manner or method, we think it's not proper and that's why we came. We told them to leave. We called on the landlord and he came in from wherever he is staying and agreed with us that the building should be rehabilitated by qualified engineer. The day we came, we came with COREN and CORBON Chairmen of Ebonyi State and we've made arrangements with them to give him qualified professional who will handle the rehabilitation, but the problem we are having is that some of the occupants have refused to leave the building, because you can't start repair or rehabilitating a building as bad as this and still you have people inside".
He tasks the police to arrest henceforth, anyone fund in the compound, reiterating that it is dangerous for anyone to be living in a building with such level of defect.
"I want you to keep a constant check in this place. Anybody you see here henceforth, pick him up because when something happen, they will be the one to blame government, now we have been telling them to leave the house and some of them have refused to leave.
"We're not telling them to leave the compound forever but just to give way for the repair work to be done in the building after which they can still come back when the building is satisfied safe for habitation".
He commended the landlord for cooperating and collaborating with the ministry to ensure that proper repairs is carried out on the building by professionals to avert impending collapse, stressing that the ministry will also give him professional that will Supervise the repair work.
The commissioner called on the general public to join hands with the ministry to eradicate building collapse in the state by reporting any building defects to the ministry or other relevant professional bodies for appropriate action, assuring that their identify will not be disclosed.
On his part, the landlord, Mr Ngwu Chibueze Joseph, said he is ready to cooperate with government to find solutions to the problem as he detest anything that will harm him or any occupants of the building.
Ngwu, a Lagos based business man, revealed to our reporter that the three storey building with about twelve flats was built in 2019 and when he was informed about the defect he contacted an engineer who told him that the defect was not much and as such can be rehabilitated but to his greatest surprise, the rehabilitation work done did not solve any problem.
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