It’s exactly one year since a church building collapsed in Akwa Ibom State, killing 27 people, and injuring 37 on December 10, 2016, and some additional number of people have died as a result the injuries they sustained from the incident.
The Reigners Bible Church, Uyo, which was under construction, caved in, during a ceremony to consecrate its founder, Akan Weeks, as a bishop.
The Akwa Ibom Governor, Udom Emmanuel, who was a special guest at the ceremony, narrowly escaped unhurt. Since then the state government hasn’t made any statement on the incident.
Irked by what they described as the government “insensitivity” to the victims, the human rights community in the state has renewed their call for the urgent release of the report of the judicial commission of inquiry set up by the state government to investigate the incident.
The commission, headed by a retired judge, Umoekoyo Essang, submitted its report in July to the state government.
Inibehe Effiong, a Lagos-based lawyer and human rights campaigner, told Premium Times that the government’s response to the Uyo church collapse has been “very unfortunate”. It clearly shows that government has interest in not doing justice in the matter because like we have maintained consistently, the founder of the church is known to be a personal friend of the governor.”