Thunderstorm wreaks havoc at FCE, Abeokuta

THUNDERSTORM on Tuesday wreaked havoc at the Federal College of Education (FCE), Abeokuta, destroying over 30 buildings, in the institution.

The incident happened at about 2.30pm during a heavy rainfall when about 1,500 students of the school were writing examination inside one of the multipurpose hall.

Speaking with newsmen, the Deputy Provost of the College, Dr Rafiu Soyele, noted that property worth millions of Maura was destroyed by the storm.

He appealed to the Federal Government through the Ministry of Education to urgently come to the need of the school, describing the level of damage as devastating.

Soyele said some of the buildings affected by the storm affected were the Provost office, the vocational education department, office of the Dean,  the microteaching laboratory, Students union building, the 1500 seater hall of the institution among others. In fact the incident occurred during an examination.

He said, “As at yesterday we were in the office around 2:30pm, when the thunderstorm came, but we thought it was going to be a small thing but surprisingly it even started from my office. I noticed flood in my office and I asked some staff to clean it up and just as they were doing that, I started receiving calls from different quarters reporting the devastating effect the rain has had on their file and sections.

“We started moving round to see what has really happened, we were sad because of the devastating effect the thunderstorm had on the campus.

“The storm affected the provost office, the vocational education department, and office of the dean, the microteaching laboratory, Students union building, and the 1500 seater hall of the institution among others. In fact the incident occurred during an examination.

“The damage is enormous, the buildings that are affected are not less than thirty, we discovered this when we moved round yesterday and that is the issue on ground.

“Honestly, we are not happy with what has happened here yesterday but we just have to let the government know the environmental hazard that has occurred in our college yesterday.

“We would need the assistant of the Federal government because the damage is enormous and we all know that we are in an era of paucity of fund.

“We are lucky because we are almost concluding our exams and the students are almost leaving for their various homes so, this has no effect on the students for now, but we must address it before their resumption and by November ending the students will be resuming back to school.”