FEATURE | The night a family of eight went to sleep in Ilorin and five never woke up

At exactly 5:20am, Abdulfatai Abdulraheem was lying on his bed, preparing to get up for the Subhi prayer, when he heard a strange sound.

“Gboooooo,” It sounded like something had suddenly fallen heavily to the ground.

For Abdulraheem, a civil servant and aluminium fabricator living next door, the sound immediately raised an alarm.

His mind went to the house beside his. He rushed out and tried to open the entrance door but it was already open.

Getting inside, what he saw, got him shocked. Dust from the collapsed building had spread through the house, covering the area with rubble. Then he heard someone shouting for help.

It was the elder brother of the family who lived in the boys’ quarters. His brother, Muhammad Bolakale, and his family were trapped beneath the rubble.

Within minutes, the quiet of Popo Giwa, Ilorin, had turned into a desperate rescue scene. Neighbours began calling the names of the family members, hoping to hear a response from beneath the debris.

Then came a faint voice. “Help, help, help.” It was Bolakale, the father of the family.

He had been in the toilet performing ablution when the structure collapsed. A piece of wood had trapped him around the neck, but he was still conscious and able to call for help.

Abdulraheem and other residents moved towards him. They eventually freed him and took him to hospital. But the rescue was far from over.

The neighbours told the arriving fire service officials that Bolakale was not the only person trapped but his wife and children were still underneath the rubble.

An iron bender was called to assist, but the scale of the collapse made the work difficult. The family’s relatives living in Okolowo also began making calls to emergency agencies, including the National Emergency Management Agency, waiting for excavator.

According to Abdulraheem, it was around 9am to 10am before an excavator arrived. Even then, rescuers first had to demolish a bungalow behind the collapsed section to create access to the rubble. Then the excavator began pulling apart the debris.

One after another, members of the family were brought out. Some were alive, some were not.

The eldest daughter, Misturah Abisola, was found dead. Another daughter was rescued alive and was able to walk after being pulled from the rubble. A third child was brought out unconscious and was later discovered to have suffered a fracture. Another family member was rescued alive but died before reaching the hospital.

By the time the mother and the youngest child were brought out, they were already dead. Five members of the family were gone. Three survived.

The morning everything changed

Qudus Sambo Olarewaju, Bolakale’s elder brother, was living in the same compound with his own family. He recounts the morning vividly while speaking to this newspaper.

When the call for the early morning prayer came around 5am, Qudus was reluctant to get out of bed. His brother had already woken up and gone to the bathroom to perform ablution.

One of Qudus’ wives also briefly went to the restroom before returning to the room. The children were awake. Some were disturbing their mother because they wanted food. Qudus was addressing them when the sound came.

Then everything changed. A loud deafening sound with dust filled the compound.

“I couldn’t see what’s in my front,” he recalled.

The building behind them was a three-storey structure with a penthouse at the top. It had collapsed from the top to the bottom.

Qudus moved towards the area where he normally performed ablution, only to discover that there was nowhere to step. Then he heard his brother. It was a faint cry for help.

“It was his voice I heard that made me realise that something bad has happened,” Qudus said.

He shouted “yeee”, prompting neighbours to run outside and begin calling for help.

The first responders were ordinary residents including Abdulraheem who spoke with this newspaper earlier. They tried to remove the rubble with their hands but could not reach the trapped family.

Not long after that, Fire service officials arrived. Later, emergency agencies, including National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), joined the operation.

But the rubble was too heavy. An excavator was needed.

And while the machine eventually made it possible to reach the trapped victims, what it uncovered was devastating. Five members of the family had died.

They were not just victims

For Qudus, the five people who died cannot be reduced to the number attached to a building-collapse report.

His sister-in-law, worked at the Michael Imoudu National Institute for Labour Studies in Ilorin.

She was, he said, a caring, kind-hearted, friendly and religious woman who treated people with respect.

Her eldest daughter, Misturah Abisola, had recently graduated from Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, and was preparing for the compulsory National Youth Service Corps programme.

Another daughter, Mubarakat, was an NCE holder and had already started teaching at a private school. The youngest victims were Firdaos, about seven years old, and Muktar, about five.

The father, Bolakale, survived the collapse. He is a serving military officer with the rank of sergeant.

The other survivors were Hajia Saadat, who had just gained admission into university, and Zainab, now in SS2.

But their survival came with a painful cost. They were left to recover while five members of their family were buried.

The last night

Perhaps one of the most painful memories for the family is how ordinary the final night had been.

Qudus’ wife had spoken with the mother who is now deceased the night before the collapse. They discussed a retirement party held at her workplace that day.

She also told her that she had helped her with some herbal medicine because she was feeling unwell. There was no indication that it would be their last conversation. By the following morning, Saadat was dead.

Qudus said he did not have a final conversation with his sister-in-law because they did not normally see each other often despite living in the same compound.

For him, that ordinary conversation now carries the weight of a farewell nobody knew they were saying.

A tragedy without warning

What makes the tragedy more difficult for residents to understand is that, according to Abdulraheem, there was no obvious warning before the collapse.

He said residents did not notice cracks in the structure before it came down. The only cracks he noticed appeared after the incident.

The building was, in fact, regarded by some residents as one of the stronger structures in the neighbourhood.

“We have many houses that weren’t up to this standard and they didn’t collapse,” he said.

He wondered whether a pillar supporting the affected section might have been weak without residents knowing.

The official cause of the collapse had not been established at the time of the interviews.

Authorities had earlier said the collapsed portion was the building’s boys’ quarters and that the remaining structure would be assessed. The family subsequently agreed to demolish the remaining section.

Part of a bigger Nigerian problem

The tragedy in Popo Giwa is not an isolated story.

A 2026 study published in the University of Abuja Journal of Engineering and Technology examined 111 validated building-collapse incidents in Nigeria between 2015 and 2025.

The study recorded 321 deaths and 344 injuries across those incidents. It identified structural defects, poor construction techniques and inferior materials among the leading identifiable triggers, while noting that many cases did not have clearly established causes.

The figures give a wider picture to what had happened in Popo Giwa. But for residents who watched a building they considered strong suddenly collapse without an obvious warning, the numbers do not explain what happened to this particular family. They only show how many other families have faced similar losses.

In a study, the University of Ilorin also reported that Dr Kabiru Suleiman Ajao linked building failures to professional negligence and called for stricter monitoring of construction projects. Also, the Chairman of the Kwara State Technical Committee of the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria, Bashir Lawal, called for an audit of buildings across the state following the incident.

What remains after the rubble

After the rescue operation eventually ended, the bodies were recovered and buried according to Islamic rites. The survivors remained in hospital.

The family also received support from the Kwara State Government, according to Qudus, which provided ₦2 million for the upkeep of those receiving treatment. The Michael Imoudu National Institute of Labour Studies also pledged ₦1 million, although Qudus said the family had not received the money at the time of the interview.

Neighbours, community leaders, government officials and other sympathisers also visited the family.

Qudus said the family appreciated the support, particularly the response of the state government and the people who stood with them after the tragedy.

But support cannot bring back the five people lost that morning. For Qudus, what matters now is how they are remembered.

He wants people to remember the mother  as a woman who cared for others, respected people and loved her family.

He wants Misturah remembered as an optimistic young woman who was passionate about what she did.

And behind those memories are Firdaos and Muktar, children whose lives were cut short before they had the chance to grow into them.