In the wake of a report by an earthquake Monitoring Station at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Osun state that it captured an earth tremor of 3.8 magnitude in Gwagwalada and Abaji in Abuja recently, the Nigeria Geological Survey Agency (NGSA) has denied the report.
According to a Deputy Director of the Agency, Abah Usman, “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 at least minimum of three equipment.
“Now, 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. Secondly, you can force an event to happen for whatever reason.
“We are now faulting it saying its manner of information dissemination did not follow the right channels. They should have confirmed and compared. Apart from NGSA, there are agencies like NASRDA that have metres and none of them has picked it and earth tremor is not something that can be hidden.
“What struck me the most was for an earth tremor of 3.8 magnitude to have taken place. If it happened in Abaji, that impact would have alerted someone in Jere, but nobody is aware of that impact and the distance is not much.”
Meanwhile, the paramount ruler of Abaji, Ona of Abaji, Alhaji Adamu Baba Yunusa, stated that he did not witness or experience any vibration not to talk of the alleged earth tremor in his kingdom, adding that everywhere is calm.
Also speaking, Acting Head of Department, Physics, University of Abuja, George Galayam, described the alleged report of earth tremor as unfounded, stressing that those who came up with the report were not professionals on their job.
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 even record it. I think that assertion is baseless,” he said.
