Uyo church collapse: Victims can sue govt, says ex-NBA chair

A former chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Uyo
branch, Ekanem Ekanem, has said families of victims, dead and
injured, of the collapsed Reigners Bible Church, can now sue the
Uyo Capital City Development Authority (UCCDA), the government
agency responsible for authorisation of buildings in the capital
city.

Ekanem, relying on the findings of the a commission of inquiry
set up to probe the immediate and remote causes of the collapsed
building, said: “UCCDA had marked that place several times for
demolition, but they did not pull it down on the claim that they
had no equipment. The question is, why did you need any equipment
to pull down, when, at the time you marked it, only block work was
done?

“So, they are even more liable to be sued than the church
because the fault lies squarely on the doorstep of UCCDA. They saw
a building where it should not be and turned a blind eye.”

Ekanem wondered why the commission tried to indict Pastor Weeks,
on the grounds that he asked that a scaffolding be removed from the
centre of the church, a day to the event, stressing that even if
the scaffolding was made to remain, the building would have
collapsed, because scaffolding is not part of the structures which
can permanently sustain a building.

The church collapsed on December 10, 2016, and the state
government set up a commission of inquiry on December 26, 2016,
while a white paper published recently by the state government,
based on the commission’s report, revealed that UCCDA ‘served
several ‘stop work’ notices on the church, and a demolition notice
on August 16, 2016, but failed to stop the construction of the
building at the foundation level, and thus “was found remotely
responsible for the collapse of the church building.”

A former chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Uyo
branch, Ekanem Ekanem, has said families of victims, dead and
injured, of the collapsed Reigners Bible Church, can now sue the
Uyo Capital City Development Authority (UCCDA), the government
agency responsible for authorisation of buildings in the capital
city.

Ekanem, relying on the findings of the a commission of inquiry
set up to probe the immediate and remote causes of the collapsed
building, said: “UCCDA had marked that place several times for
demolition, but they did not pull it down on the claim that they
had no equipment. The question is, why did you need any equipment
to pull down, when, at the time you marked it, only block work was
done?

“So, they are even more liable to be sued than the church
because the fault lies squarely on the doorstep of UCCDA. They saw
a building where it should not be and turned a blind eye.”

Ekanem wondered why the commission tried to indict Pastor Weeks,
on the grounds that he asked that a scaffolding be removed from the
centre of the church, a day to the event, stressing that even if
the scaffolding was made to remain, the building would have
collapsed, because scaffolding is not part of the structures which
can permanently sustain a building.

The church collapsed on December 10, 2016, and the state
government set up a commission of inquiry on December 26, 2016,
while a white paper published recently by the state government,
based on the commission’s report, revealed that UCCDA ‘served
several ‘stop work’ notices on the church, and a demolition notice
on August 16, 2016, but failed to stop the construction of the
building at the foundation level, and thus “was found remotely
responsible for the collapse of the church building.”