By Emmanuel Onwusoro
Corruption has been identified as one of the major challenges plaguing the building construction industry in Nigeria.
This observation was made by a Chief Lecturer in the Department Of Building Technology, Federal Polytechnic, Ado-Ekiti, Builder Garba Saadu Olorunoje, while delivering the 24th Professor E.K. Obiakor Memorial Lecture Series.
In the lecture titled, “Building Failure In Nigeria: The Unending Phenomenon”, Builder Olorunoje noted that apart from clothing and food,one other requirement of man is shelter. Hence, the need to beam searchlight on cases of building failures and collapse in Nigeria,and the major causes,which according to him are primarily traceable to human errors.
He brought to the fore attitude of government agencies and the citizenry towards safety of building infrastructures in the country and proffered possible solutions which could help to minimize the menace of building collapse, particularly those caused by human errors and negligence.
The Chief lecturer identified some causes of failure and collapse of buildings to include:
– Lack of technical knowledge
– Political interference and corruption in the selection of contractors
– Negligence and corruption on the part of statutory authorities
– Ageing and inadequate maintenance
– Design errors, foundation failures,construction error,poor workmanship and inadequate supervision,materials deficiency and others.
The educationist pointed out that the implication of the nauseating scenario is that the professionals statutorily recognized in the construction industry in Nigeria can be prosecuted if a project in which anyone of them had participated fails and investigations show that the cause of the failure is traceable to them.
According to him, “these professionals are therefore expected to diligently perform the roles assigned to them by law in line with their training. This is because under each profession,qualified persons are required to register after training and writing of qualifying examinations with the registration bodies relevant to their professions”.
To reduce challenges of building collapse to a manageable proportion, Builder Olorunoje advocated that all hands must be on deck, particularly the critical stakeholders which embrace,clients,professional bodies, government,professionals, and the general public.
Emphatically, he urged the right organs of the government to fast-track giving legal backing to the National Building Code of 2006.Buttressing this,he said,” it is my humble opinion that signing that Code into law is capable of bringing a lot of sanity into the industry in Nigeria as it has done in other parts of the world where such codes or regulations exist”.
He also canvassed that government at all levels should intensify public enlightenment stressing how building disasters could be prevented,rather than managing situations that might be costlier.
“The government should ensure that cases of building collapse are investigated and erring persons punished as a deterrent. Apart from the case involving the Synagogue Church in Lagos,there are so many others where the contractor and clients have been allowed to escape justice due to the apathy of our government agencies towards such investigations”.
He believed that the construction industry should be a major battlefield for the government to fight if it hopes to to win it’s current war against corruption.
The Rector of the Polytechnic,Dr Dayo Hephzibah Oladebeye described the lecture as a good outing believing that everyone that attended would have gained something. He noted that a singular failure of an engineer or builder will lead to the loss of several human lives, while in contrast to medical doctors, they are only responsible for loss of a life at a time but an error committed by an engineer or a builder, as has been enunciated in this lecture, several human lives are being lost as a result of negligence, corruption which referred to as being endemic within the system that allows people to use fake materials, that allows people to cut corners, design errors, and inadequate maintenance.
“And of course, you will agree with me that in our country today, it’s lack of maintenance culture, we allow facilities to get out of date without paying attention and so also many of our buildings”. He said he never expected less from the lecturer having been in the institution since1986 ,hence his journey in the academics is not that of yesterday.
