About 40 people, many of them workmen, were buried alive yesterdaywhen a complex under construction in the Jabi area of Abuja collapsed, due to poor quality of work.

A source told LEADERSHIP last night that the building belongs to a former governor of Delta State, Chief James Ibori.

Mr Jerry Nkwachu, who spoke to our correspondent, said a crack was noticed on some parts of the building on Monday and the contractor came Tuesday morning to do some reinforcement work on the cracked portion, but was unlucky, as the three-storey building gave way, trapping masons who were doing plastering work, carpenters and sachet water hawkers.

One of the workers who gave his name as Auwalu told our correspondents that the complex was being constructed through direct labour and said he escaped the accident because he went out of the site to have his lunch.

He said hawkers and workmen numbering over 50 were trapped in the rubble of the building, some of whom were calling their wards and relatives on their mobile phones.

Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Dr Aliyu Modibbo Umar, who went to the scene some three hours later, has vowed to demolish the entire complex due to the shoddy work at the site.

He told LEADERSHIP that stringent building plans and codes would be enforced by the FCT authorities and, where necessary, contractors who flout the codes would be prosecuted.

Five victims of the accident were said to have been rushed to Wuse General Hospital for medical attention.

Cranes and payloader operators were working at the site, trying to rescue the trapped workers at the time of this report.

Meanwhile, the Council for the Regulation of Engineering of Nigeria (COREN) has called for the arrest of everyone involved in the building project as they were not involved in the project.

The registrar of COREN who spoke with our correspondents last night said the builders used sub-standard building materials and hired roadside workers for the multi-million naira project.