Labour Party scribe, family escape death, as two storey building collapses

By Vincent Kalu

The National Organizing Secretary of the Labour Party, Clement Ojukwu and his family recently escaped being crushed by a two-storey building under construction, which collapsed from an adjoining compound on top their home at Nnewi.

The construction of the collapsed building, according to information has been a subject of bitter communal and legal dispute between Chief Benjamin Okeke and the Ojukwus who were said to be cousins.

The building, according to Mrs. Gladys Ojukwu, wife of Clement, crumbled at about 7.45am.

Comrade Ojukwu told journalists who rushed to the scene: “I left home at about 07.15am this morning. But about 40 minutes later, I got an urgent call from one of my neighbours, Mr. Samuel Ejizu for me to rush back home immediately. That the new multi-storey building beside my house which was under construction had collapsed.

“Sounding hysterically disturbed, Mr Ejizu said that no one knows whether my wife who was in the kitchen cooking when I left home was trapped under the debris.

“I told him to please mobilise people to assist in searching and ascertain that my wife was safe, before I rushed back home from where I had gone to. I was elated when she called me about five minutes later informing me of how she narrowly escaped death as the building under construction in the next compound collapsed.”

The collapsed structure destroyed a wing of Ojukwu’s house, caused extensive damages to three of his big generating sets, including one heavy duty Perkins generating set, about three motorcycles, two gas cookers with oven, kitchen unit, deep freezers, refrigerators assorted choice China plates and others.

Efforts to speak to Okeke, whose mansion was in the adjoining compound on Benjy Okeke Street, a street named after him, proved abortive.