The General Overseer of Reigners Bible Church Int’l Inc. Apostle Akan Weeks on Monday revealed that he received verbal approval in principle to build the collapsed structure in Uyo that killed many and left hundreds with various degrees of injuries last December.
According to The Nation, Weeks, who was testifying at a panel of inquiry set up to by the state government to investigate the cause of the collapse, also revealed that he paid N300,000 to Etido Udoh, a member of staff of Uyo Capital City Development Authority, (UCCDA) as approval fee.
When asked by members of the panel if he applied for the approval to develop and build a church on the site, Weeks said:
“To be very honest. I am a man of God. I don’t believe in lies. We applied. That was in 2014. I applied with all the documents required. We applied through writing and there were other documents which I gave to them like the survey plan; structural design and so on.
“They also demanded for money (N300,000) which I gave to them in my office. One Etido Udoh collected the money. No receipt was given to me at that instance but I was surprised after the December 10 incident while I was still in the hospital I had a call and somebody said he was from UCCDA (one Edito Udoh).
“He asked if he could speak with me when my wife picked the call. He insisted to see me and I told him I was not in town. He said he wanted to give me my church documents. I told him to reach my counsel. They returned my building document and the N300,000 through one Mrs Ima David, a lawyer to my lawyer Ini Ekpo on January 4, 2017 at the premises of the court.”
The pastor said the claim by the UCCDA’s head of Town Planning Department, Effiong Akpan, that the church building had been marked for demolition five different times was not true.
“They (UCCDA) did not mark the building for demolition. Officials of UCCDA never came to mark ‘X’ to the church building. I never authorized anybody to remove the central pillar. I am not competent to do so because I am a layman.”
Apostle Weeks also denied that he told some invitees to the event to come with their safety gear since the building was not complete.
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