Luck smiled the way of a middle-aged Nnewi housewife, Mrs. Gladys Ojukwu, who recently escaped being crushed by a 2-storey building under construction which collapsed from an adjoining compound next to hers.

A substantial part of the building which has been a subject of legal dispute between the owner and the family of Mrs. Ojukwu’s husband, who are said to be cousins, came crumbling at about 7. 45 am on the fateful day,Tuesday morning when everyone in the neighborhood was said to be getting set to go out for the day’s businesses.

According to Comrade Ojukwu, whose wife had a narrow escape: “I left home at about 07.15 am. But about 40 minutes later, I got an urgent call from one of my neighbors, 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 cooking in the family kitchen when I left was trapped under the debris.

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“I told him to please mobilize 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.

“Sadly, the owner of the building is a brother and friend, Benjamin Okeke. I had in the progress of the construction called and intimated him that it was not only close to my house but that it was dangerously closing to my compound/building.

“His response was that his father told him that one talks about boundary on the ground, not up or in the air. And that on the strength, he knows not what I was saying. So he continued with the project, finished the first decking, and started the second. I was forced to go to court to stop him. “That is the stage where we were when this happened today”, he pointed out.

When effort was made to speak to Okeke whose mansion was in the neighborhood, he was alleged to be on the run.