A storey building been developed as a hotel facility in Idumoza Community, Esan North East Local Government Area of Edo State, collapsed on Friday August 1st 2025, killing the property owner.
The victim, identified as Harrison Isesele, was trapped under the rubbles and killed at the scene during supervision of the construction project when the incident occurred, but construction workers at the site, narrowly escaped death and fled.
As reported, the tragedy underscores the urgent need strict enforcement of building code, quality standards as well as safety regulations at construction sites.
The property owner whose dead body was recovered under the rubble by concerned Idumoza residents who alerted the security agents in the Community.
Though the cause of the building collapse is yet to be ascertained, but some witnesses blamed the collapse building on use of substandard building materials by the property owner whom they earlier warned against the impending danger of his action.
In an interview, Moses Idemudia, alleged that “what led to this building collapse is because of the use of substandard materials that were used by the owner of the house”.
“When I came here before the incident occurred, I did my own findings, I discovered that there was no Engineer on site. The building was managed by the owner. It collapsed and killed him.
Another witness, Stephen Oriaowan alleged that Isesele has been the one building this house, and he told me that he was building a hotel in here (site) during my encounter with him before the incident. I replied him, ‘is this land not too small for a hotel? There should be a parking space for a hotel’. If you look at the collapsed building”.
On his part, Andrew Inegbebor, said, “when the boy was building this house, our Community boys told him that the materials that he was using were of low quality.
‘If you take a look at the building, there is no pillar to stand a storey building. Rather, he used 12mm rod instead of 16mm rod. There was no base pot”, according to Inegbebor.
TheNewspad reports that residents of Idumoza, including women were seen around the scene, lamenting over the tragedy and making effort to reach out to the late Isesele’s family via telephone phone calls.
