PRESS STATEMENT
12th July 2026
📍Aba / Abia state
📍FENRAD Commends GADA’s Swift Response, Calls for Comprehensive Building Safety Audit and Stronger Regulatory Enforcement Across Abia State
📍The Foundation for Environmental Rights, Advocacy and Development (FENRAD), Nigeria An Environmental Advocacy & Accountability watch dogs commends the Greater Aba Development Authority (GADA) for its swift and professional intervention in ordering the controlled demolition of the distressed four-storey residential building located at No. 71 Clifford Road, Aba, following expert findings that the structure posed an imminent risk of collapse due to severe foundation defects.
✳️FENRAD particularly applauds the prompt response of GADA’s Building Control Unit, Engineering Department, and Town Planning Department for immediately conducting a structural assessment, safely evacuating all occupants, securing the area, and initiating measures for a controlled demolition to prevent loss of lives and minimize damage to neighbouring properties.
✳️This proactive action reflects responsible governance and demonstrates the critical importance of effective building control, regulatory oversight, and prioritizing public safety.
✅While this timely intervention has averted what could have become another national tragedy, it also exposes serious concerns regarding the structural integrity of many aging, poorly maintained, and improperly constructed buildings across Aba and other urban centres in Abia State.
🟢The incident should serve as a wake-up call for government institutions, developers, professionals in the built environment, and property owners to strengthen compliance with building regulations and safety standards.
✳️Nigeria has, over the years, witnessed numerous tragic building collapse incidents that have claimed hundreds of lives, destroyed investments, displaced families, and eroded public confidence in regulatory institutions.
✅These unfortunate incidents continue to reveal recurring problems such as substandard construction materials, inadequate soil investigations, poor engineering designs, weak foundations, unauthorized structural alterations, poor workmanship, corruption in the building approval process, and inadequate monitoring by regulatory authorities.
✅The situation demands urgent and sustained reforms rather than reactive responses after disasters occur.
FENRAD therefore calls on the Abia State Government and GADA to immediately commence a comprehensive structural integrity audit of high-rise buildings and other public-use structures across Aba and the entire state. Priority attention should be given to residential apartments, schools, hospitals, markets, shopping plazas, hotels, worship centres, office complexes, and other buildings with high human occupancy, particularly older structures or those already showing signs of structural distress. Preventive engineering assessments will help identify vulnerabilities before they develop into catastrophic failures.
The Foundation also urges the Abia State Government to strengthen the institutional capacity of GADA and other relevant agencies by increasing technical manpower, improving inspection mechanisms, providing modern monitoring equipment, and ensuring strict enforcement of the Abia State building regulations and physical planning laws without fear or favour.
Furthermore, FENRAD recommends that the government should:
☑️Conduct routine structural integrity assessments of existing public and private buildings.
Enforce compulsory geotechnical (soil) investigations and structural certification before approval of multi-storey developments.
☑️Digitize building approval, inspection, and compliance systems to enhance transparency and reduce opportunities for manipulation.
☑️Establish an independent Building Safety Review Committee comprising structural engineers, architects, builders, town planners, geologists, quantity surveyors, and environmental experts to periodically evaluate buildings considered high-risk.
☑️Create a dedicated emergency reporting platform through which residents can confidentially report cracks, foundation failures, illegal structural modifications, or other signs of building distress.
☑️Impose strict administrative and legal sanctions on developers, contractors, consultants, or public officials found guilty of negligence, professional misconduct, or violations of building standards.
☑️FENRAD also calls on relevant professional bodies, including the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE), the Nigerian Institute of Architects (NIA), the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN), the Council of Registered Builders of Nigeria (CORBON), and the Town Planners Registration Council of Nigeria (TOPREC), to work closely with government agencies in promoting ethical practice, professional accountability, quality assurance, and continuous monitoring of construction activities across the state.
☑️ FENRAD equally urges regulatory agencies to conduct a thorough and transparent investigation into the immediate and underlying causes of the structural failure at No. 71 Clifford Road. Such investigation should examine the adequacy of the structural design, quality of construction materials, foundation integrity, compliance with approved building plans, supervision during construction, and whether all statutory approvals and inspections were properly carried out.
✅Any individual or institution found culpable should be held accountable in accordance with the law.
☑️FENRAD further encourages residents to remain vigilant and promptly report visible signs of structural distress, including widening cracks, tilting walls, sinking foundations, exposed reinforcement bars, unusual vibrations, leaning structures, or any observable deformation. Public awareness and active community participation remain essential components of disaster risk reduction and urban resilience
☑️The Foundation emphasizes that sustainable urban development cannot be achieved without strict adherence to planning regulations, environmental safeguards, professional ethics, and effective institutional oversight.
✅ Building safety is fundamentally a human rights issue, as every citizen has the right to live and work in safe environments free from preventable hazards.
✳️As a leading non-governmental, non-profit and non-partisan organization committed to promoting environmental justice, protecting human rights, advancing sustainable development, and strengthening democratic governance through evidence-based advocacy, policy engagement, community mobilization, public interest interventions, research, and strategic partnerships
✳️FENRAD reaffirms its commitment to promoting safe urban development, disaster risk reduction, environmental sustainability, accountability, and the protection of lives and property.
🟢 FENRAD will continue to collaborate with government institutions, professional bodies, civil society organizations, development partners, the media, and local communities to champion policies and actions that strengthen environmental governance, improve public safety standards, build resilient communities, and safeguard the environment for present and future generations.
📌Signed;
Comrade Nelson Nnanna Nwafor
Executive Director
Foundation for Environmental Rights, Advocacy and Development (FENRAD), Nigeria
📍Plot 44 St Michael Road 4th Floor Front Aba Abia state
Tel; 08033383708,07062949232
Email; info@fenrad.org.ng
info.fenradnigeria@gmail.com
www.fenrad.org.ng
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