• Calls for Seismic-ready building

A professor of Solid Earth Physics at Tai Solarin University of Education, TASUED, has warned that Ijebu Ode could experience an earthquake by 2028, raising fresh questions about the geological stability beneath the Ogun State city.

Delivering the 39th Inaugural Lecture of the university recently, Prof. Oluwakemi Abosede Oyebanjo presented what she called “compelling evidence” that Ijebu Ode sits atop a deepseated geological fault line capable of generating earthquakes.

The lecture, titled “From Sediment to Solid Earth: Unveiling Opportunities and Hazards in the Subsurface,” moved beyond groundwater and mineral exploration to confront the potential for seismic events in the Ijebu/ Remo region.

“We cannot continue to build as if we live on a geological platform that is entirely stable,” Prof. Oyebanjo told a packed hall of academics, dignitaries, and students.

While many Nigerians view the country as seismically inert, she presented historical and geological data that challenge that assumption.

She cited the IfewaraZungeru fault zone, a major tectonic lineament cutting through western Nigeria, which has been linked to previous quakes.

“Notably, Ijebu Ode has experienced earth movements as far back as 1963, with a more significant event occurring on July 28, 1984,” she said.

That earthquake, with an epicentre close to Ijebu Ode, registered an intensity of V-VI on the Mercalli scale and was felt across the SouthWest, including Abeokuta, Ibadan, and Sagamu.

“These are not myths. The 1984 event was recorded at the LAMTO seismic observatory in the Ivory Coast and by a station at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.

The earth beneath us has moved before, and the geological structures suggest it retains the capacity to do so again,” she stated.

Prof. Oyebanjo, former Dean of the College of Science and Information Technology, said the intermediate zone between the top sediment and the solid crystalline basement is a dynamic environment. Using geo-electrical resistivity and magnetic surveys, she has mapped weaknesses in the Earth’s crust.