When the news broke recently that a building had collapsed at Ita-Faji Street in Lagos Island, Lagos State, and that several school children and other adults were trapped under the rubble, the memory of his own miraculous survival came flooding back into the mind of Uche Benjamin, an electrical engineer and contractor.
Benjamin, who hails from Nibo in Awka South Local Government Area of Anambra State miraculously survived when a three-storey building which was under construction, and where he was handling the electrical wiring aspect of the project, collapsed at Ilasamaja on Oshodi-Apapa Expressway on May 18, 2017.
On that fateful day, Benjamin, a graduate of Yaba College of Technology, Lagos, recalled in a chat with Sunday Sun that he had just came down from the roof of the building and was leaning on the wall, with his leg resting on a scaffold while he put a call through to the person supplying materials for the contract. Then the earth heaved and the structure came crashing down.
In this interview, he relives that horrible experience.
Take us back to the day you were trapped in the rubble of a collapsed building
It was on May 18, 2017. I got to the site of the three-storey building at Ilasamaja on the Oshodi-Apapa Expressway, where I was in-charge of the electrical design and execution. Work was ongoing before the unexpected happened in the afternoon, some minutes past 2:00p.m. The carpenters, masons, and electricians were all busy, not knowing what was about to happen. I came down to the ground floor after estimating the amount of additional materials that we needed, and tried to send SMS to the supplier of electrical materials. I leaned by the wall of the said building and kept my leg on a scaffold with my phone in my hand. Then I heard the crack. I did not finish that SMS before I heard a big sound above me and looked up. If I had been inside, I would not have noticed it. But because I was outside I saw it all. As I raised my head up to know where the sound came from, it got louder and within seconds, everything came down on us – heavy pillars, broken blocks and dusty haze of cement, and were all covered by the rubble. The ground floor did not collapse completely. Many people were trapped under the rubble, and I thought it was over for us. We were choking and everywhere was dark. I had a tiny space, through which I saw a shaft of light and little air was coming through there. So, I could breathe a little there from that space. Only God knows why I was spared because I think it was not yet my time. We were there for about 45 minutes before the rescue operation started. It took a long time before I started hearing the screams of people who were also trapped under the rubble, but I could not move my body. My shoulder was held by pillars while my knee area was held by fallen bricks. I was trapped and couldn’t move, but I was hearing noise of people trying to rescue us after sometime.
Who rescued you?
It was people from the Red Cross because I heard someone speaking like an Indian. From that straight light where I was stuck I was seeing light from a torch and heard the question, “Is anybody here?” I tried to pull my hand to throw something to signify that somebody was there. That light was focused towards that little concrete I threw out; the next thing I heard was, ‘don’t move, don’t move, stay there we are coming.’ It was a bit difficult for them to come to where I was. Some people then climbed up and started breaking the blocks with vigour. If one is not careful, they can break someone’s head, not purposely but because they are trying their best with speed to rescue the living people. I was telling them slowly to stop breaking and take it easy, the hammer was raging with loud sound, they broke out some blocks and it gave the rescuers some space to move me out. I was very lucky; God was on my side. By the time I was pulled out, I was not unconscious, but very weak and weary. I was taken straight to the hospital by an ambulance. I managed to clean my face thinking it was sweat not knowing it was blood from the bruises and wounds that I sustained. All my men came out alive; that would have been another trouble. When I was in the hospital, some sympathizers said about five people died; some others died later.
What lessons did you learn from it?
If you are a child of God, remain there. Commit your life into His hand before you step out every day. That is my power and secret as I open my eyes each day and crown it with Psalm 91 and 23. That fateful day, I heard the voice that said to me move inside and stay there to send your message, I heard the other voice say, do not move in stay outside. I did not know that there was a contest between the two voices. If I had moved inside, I would have been more comfortable, but not knowing that obeying the voice that said I should move inside would have led to my death. So, I ignored the first voice which wanted me to move inside and be comfortable. It was in those brief seconds of confusion caught between the two voices that I heard the sound of the crack in the concrete structure of the building. Honestly, I don’t want to remember that experience. One of my personal messages is this: “It is good for someone to keep his or her hands clean. I work at the construction site and I know the amount of stealing and diversion of materials that happens there. I thank God in heaven.
From your experience, what will you tell builders?
Being in the construction line, and because of the last three incidents of collapsed buildings in Lagos, I heard that the president has signed the bill into law. Signing into law is not the only issue, but it must be followed up by the stakeholders. Builders should use the right materials for the desired specifications. I am not a civil engineer, but an electrical engineer who can build. The appropriate material should be used and not inferior types. Again, do not use a bag of cement to mold one hundred blocks. There are required specifications which would produce the exact quantity of strong blocks that will stand the test of time. People who stay in houses marked for demolition should leave there even though they had paid the rent.
Have you been to that site since then?
If I have anything that will take me there, I must device a means and take another way. I hate to remember the day or go to that site again.