Federal agency, UNIABUJA, monarch fault earth tremor report

The Nigeria Geological Survey Agency (NGSA) has denied the report of a 3.8 magnitude earth tremor in Gwagwalada and Abaji, satellite towns of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). An Earthquake Monitoring Station at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Osun State, had on January 10, 2020 reported that earth tremor of 3.8 magnitude had occurred in the two towns.

But deputy director of Geophysics Department in the agency, Abah Usman, while on a visit to the towns yesterday, said had it been there was such shaking of the earth in that part of Abuja, residents would have been thrown into confusion and pandemonium, and the agency would have, no doubt, seriously alerted residents.

Usman said: “For you to effectively record earthquake, it is not something that you will obtain from one single equipment, and each equipment can record vibration. So for you to get the place where the tremor occurred, you have to use a minimum of three equipment.“If there is a problem in configuration, you can pick so many things beneath the earth, but there are those we now classify as tremors. If there is configuration problem, you may think an event is one that is not. Second, you can force an event to happen for whatever reason.”

According to him, the report was faulted because the manner the information was disseminated did not follow the right channels.“They should have confirmed and compared. Apart from NGSA, there are agencies like National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA) that have meters and none of them has picked it. Earth tremor is not something that can be hidden.”

Meanwhile, the Ona of Abaji, Alhaji Adamu Yunusa, has stated that he did not experience any vibration let alone the alleged earth tremor in his kingdom, adding that everywhere is calm. Also, the Acting Head of Department, Physics, University of Abuja, George Galayam, who described the report of earth tremor as unfounded, stressed that those who came up with the report were not professionals. According to him, the equipment in his department picks any vibration around the area, as it works in simple pendulum and transmits it to the computer as it sees waves.

“Nothing has happened in Abuja as far as this equipment is concerned. It has not recorded any signal or event around here.“Imagine the distance from here to Ife. How can the system record an event in Abuja? Even the one at the NGSA did not record it. I think that assertion is baseless,” he said.