Why should facility managers be engaged to preserve infrastructures? This was the pivot of the talks at the Institute of Facility Management Association (IFMA) Nigeria’s second Award Night which held penultimate Friday at the Eko Hotels and Towers, Lagos.
Highlighting the importance of facility management, the President of the institute, Engr. Tony Nzeaku said Nigeria has witnessed huge infrastructural challenges.
“The 48 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa with over 800 million people generate roughly the same power as Spain with only 45 million people,” Nzeaku said.
According to Nzeaku, there has to be a conscious effort to “sustain the existing stock of infrastructure while expeditiously working on the badly needed shortfall.”
Failing to do this, Nzeaku warned that “the net effect of development and decline will render all efforts meaningless.”
With the theme ‘Facility Management: The sustainable alternative for national infrastructural development’ the event drew major players in the facility management sector in Nigeria, Ghana, and Canada.
It also featured presentation of awards to deserving persons and establishments.
Awardees included Beachland Estate, Lagos (Best managed residential facility), Churchgate, Victoria Island, Lagos (Best managed office facility), Swiss Pharma, Dopemu, Lagos,(Best managed industrial facility), The Palms, Lekki, Lagos (Best managed retail facility), Le Meridien, Uyo, Akwa Ibom (Best managed hospitality facility), Civic Centre, Victoria island (Best managed events facility), and National Hospital, Abuja (Best managed health care facility). Others are the Ikoyi Club 1938 (Best managed recreational facility), Covenant University, Ota, Ogun (Best managed educational facility), Provast Nigeria Limited (Corporate member of the year), Alpha Mead Facilities Limited (Best corporate FM stakeholder, Lagos (Best public FM stakeholder), Jim Ovia (IFMA Nigeria Honours award), and Mr. Henry Ezulu (Best individual IFMA Nigeria member award).
Addressing journalist, Adetokunbo Oso, representing Lagos Commissioner for environment, Tunji Bello said, “we all are facility managers.”
“It has not been easy,” Nzeaku however said, to convince Nigerians to embrace facility management.
“But, the reason why we have been encouraged to continue is that people take out money and pay to come and be certified facility managers. That’s because people are beginning to see that facility managers make a difference.”
Managing Director of Briscoe Properties, Mrs. Folasade Hughes, an architect, described the retail market in Nigeria as emerging and chose to see the lacking infrastructures as opportunity for facility managers. “The maintenance awareness in Nigeria is emerging and that is a very good trend,” she said.
Stating that the journey was just starting, Nzeaku said, “We’re really creating awareness in the field of facility management in Nigeria.”
Apart from promoting professional involvement in facility management in Nigeria, some other achievements of IFMA in Nigeria is the introduction of the a Masters degree programme in Facilities Management being run by the University of Lagos as well as the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, which runs first and second degree programmes in facilities management.
Describing the frequent building collapse as a ‘vicious cycle,’ Nzeaku said, “it is a function of corrupt nature that has pervaded all spheres in the country. Many people do not take care of what makes a building to stand. They compromise the materials, they compromise the design, they compromise everything and the building would collapse whether during construction or after some years.”
And to Hughes, “cutting corners is what causes collapsed buildings, people patronising quacks. And the more it happens, the more we hope people don’ patronise non-professionals.”
IFMA, a not-for-profit organisation, berthed in Nigeria in 1997 and over the years, it has grown to an institute with over 700 individual and 100 corporate members.
