Engineer, Supplier Trade Blames On Akwa Ibom Collapsed Building

The roof supplier and Managing Director, White Steel Integrated Services, Mr. Idorenyin White; and the Site Engineer/Supervisor, Mr. Anieti Augustine, are accusing each other over the collapse of Reigners’ Bible Church Int’l Inc building on December 10.

White, who handled the iron roofing of the church building, exonerated himself of blame, adding that the site engineer/supervisor ignored the advice he gave when he noticed some defects on the building.

White said on Tuesday that a day before the consecration of Apostle Weeks as bishop, he (White) told the construction committee members from the church that the scaffold that was inside the church should not be removed.

“But nobody listened to me, as the church has senior engineers,” he said.


He blamed the cause of the collapsed church building on civil work and not from the roofing that he supplied to the church for the construction.

According to him, the roof was heavier than the construction, which was 50 per cent done as at the time.

“On Friday, the building had an issue. I called the site manager and showed him that this building had a problem and he saw it. But he said that after the programme on Saturday, the building would be reinforced.

“They brought experienced engineers to come and look at it. I told the construction committee members from the church that the scaffold that was inside the church should not be removed but there was a lot of quarrel between me and the church because of the scaffold.

“Even another engineer said that the scaffold should not be removed until everything might have been completed because the construction was still ongoing. So, the roof was heavier than the construction, which was 50 per cent done.

“I really advised that the scaffold should not be removed, but nobody listened because they have senior engineers in the church.

“They brought one engineer, Mr. Inyang, and the man also advised that the scaffold should remain until the pole line and metals are tight, but nobody heeded his counsel.

“The steel that was used to construct the building was okay. One engineer came and designed the steel and they were working on that. Moreover, that building was not filled, it is during this programme period that they filled the building. The whole thing was compacted. Even the side beam was not fully cast and the side beam in the middle was small.

“The fault is not from us; the fault is from the civil work,” he said.

Augustine, reacting to the allegation, said that the problem was not the structure but the roof, noting that he did not in any way direct that the scaffold be pulled out of the suspending roof.

He said: “It is not the wall that has defect, even as the roof fell, that wall was still there. It is the roof that caused the problem. I was not the one that approved of the roof. It was another engineer that brought a team of engineers to examine the entire work, the design, and the kind of roof that will suit the building.

“I don’t know whether the roof constructed was designed according to specification because I was not the one that approved of it.”