By Peter Onyekachukwu Peter Onyekachukwu, DAMATURU
YOBE: A tragic incident struck Government Girls Senior Secondary School, Potiskum, Yobe State, when a classroom building partially collapsed, claiming the life of a female student and leaving five others injured.
The collapse occurred around noon while students were in class. Eyewitnesses said no teacher was present in the affected classroom when the wall came down.
“One girl from Fika Local Government Area has died, while five others sustained injuries. Some of them are still receiving medical attention,” a source told reporters.
The deceased student’s body has been handed over to her family for burial, while the injured students—Fatima Bala Adamu, who remains unconscious, along with Fatima Abba Idris, Hafsat Ahmed, Fatima Ibrahim, and Hafsat Abubakar Maina—are being treated in the hospital.
Confirming the incident, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education, Dr. Bukar Aji Bukar, said the collapse affected two classrooms with about 50 students in total.
“A corridor wall gave way, and unfortunately, five students were affected. One of them lost her life, while the others are stable, though traumatized,” he said.
He assured that the government is investigating the cause of the collapse and will work with the Ministry of Housing to prevent such incidents in the future.
However, some parents have blamed the tragedy on negligence by the state government and school authorities, citing poor maintenance of school buildings as a major concern in public schools across the state.
“This could have been avoided if the authorities had paid attention to the state of infrastructure in our schools,” a concerned parent lamented.
The incident has reignited concerns over the safety of school buildings in Yobe and the need for urgent rehabilitation of aging infrastructure.