On Wednesday, some shopkeepers and their clients narrowly avoided death at the Ekeoha shopping center in Aba, Abia State, when some shops in a part of the market collapsed.
According to news accounts, the incident occurred early in the morning, when buying and selling were at their peak.
Despite the fact that no lives were lost, commodities worth millions of naira were destroyed.
Ifeoma, a trader, said she arrived to the market to buy some products when someone started raising the alarm that certain walls in zone 13 of the retail centre were crumbling.
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According to Ifeoma, the alert caused traders and consumers to flee their stores, and a few minutes later, some stores fell, ruining many goods.
Many traders who survived the disaster thanked God for saving their lives, while others regretted the loss of their products.
Others, however, criticized the contractors who erected the businesses of doing a poor job, which culminated in the catastrophe.
Governor Alex Otti expressed his condolences to the traders and dispatched the Commissioner for Information and Culture, Okey Kanu, and his Special Assistant on Aba regeneration, Uche Ukeje, to conduct an on-the-spot evaluation of the situation.
Otti, whose statement was signed by his Chief Press Secretary, Kazie Uko, blamed the event on the alleged greed of former State officials, expressing disappointment that more structures were created on existing floors in the market not minding the negative impacts.
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As a result, he ordered the evacuation and sealing off of the collapsed parts of the market, as well as the conduct of integrity tests on other stores in the market.
The building fall comes eleven days after the famed Powerline market in Aba was devoured by a night inferno that destroyed merchandise worth millions of Naira.
According to newsmen, the scope and quality of job delivery at Ekeoha market was a source of contention in the market, prompting some traders to drag a government official and a former market chairman to the Abia State House of Assembly, accusing them of indiscriminately adding shops on existing structures.
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