Worried by the resurgence of building collapse across the country, stakeholders in the construction industry are canvassing appropriate standards in the sector. They are also proffering training, retraining and certification of personnel in construction to stem the tide, writes MUYIWA LUCAS.
Building collapse has remained a source of concern to many stakeholders and the government. This is mainly because of the lives lost in some instances and the financial setback as well as the psychological impact on the citizenry.
This is why states, especially Lagos, have provided guidelines on land use designation to guarantee orderliness in development. It is believed in some quarters that the state’s Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development (MPP&UD)’s rapid response to requests for planning information ensures that the public is adequately informed on land use zoning, permissible use, plot size, building coverage and height, setback, airspace and parking requirements, in addition to other sundry standards for potential developments. These have helped in curtailing ibuilding collapse in the state.
This position was re-echoed by the state’s Commissioner for physical Planning and Urban Development, Mr. Abiola Anifowoshe, who, in April, this year, at a ministerial briefing to commemorate Governor Akinwunmi Ambode-led administration’s second anniversary, rejoiced that “there was no single case of building collapse in the state in the last one year.”
Although Anifowoshe’s submission went unchallenged, not many agreed with his position. In a twist of fate, barely 24 hours after his submission, a building under construction in Lekki area partially collapsed. The building is at NICON Town Estate, off Admiralty Way, Lekki.
Again, on May 29, 2017, a three-storey building at 24, Daddy Aladja Street, Oke Arin on Lagos Island, undergoing renovation collapsed. Similarly, on July 22, 2017, another building went down at 7, Saidu Okeleji Street, Meiran in Agbado Oke -Odo Local Council Development Area (LCDA) of the state. Also, on July 25, 2017, another building at No 3, Massey Street, Lagos Island, collapsed in the morning, during a rainstorm. The structure was initially planned for a three-storey building before another floor was added to make it four. Another three-storey building on August 28, 2017, at Saka Oloro Street, Ilufe Road, Alaba International Market, Ojoo, collapsed.
The seeming resurgence of building collapse in the state, according to the second Vice- President of the Nigerian Institute of Building (NIOB), Mr. Kunle Awobodu, was not unexpected. He explained that going by the trend, only the unconcerned, who are not monitoring construction activities in the state, would be deceived by the temporary respite in building collapse.
He warned that barring any shoring or stability mechanism, sub-standard buildings constructed in the past would eventually fail, leading to collapse, adding that what boggled built environment observers’ minds was that building collapse resumed after the Lagos State Government recruited 395 construction professionals, mostly young graduates, to improve on the monitoring capacity of the Lagos State Building Control Agency (LABSCA).
“The irony is compounded by the fact that the buildings that have been falling lately were those under construction. From the Building Collapse and Prevention Guild record, 81 buildings collapsed in Nigeria in the past five years,” he noted.
Awobodu, who is also the president of the Building Collapse Prevention Guild (BCPG), blamed the recurring menace on challenges of enforcingf building laws. He said the absence of a building code, which ought to guide building construction in the country has been an encumbrance.
He added that nations with effective building codes hardly have cases of building collapse. The NIOB chief is convinced that if the National Building Code could be passed into law and abided by, the frequency of substandard construction would be very low.
He, however, explained that it was pertinent to understand the significant difference between monitoring of building development and supervision or management of building production process. The latter, he said, is the appropriate approach to ascertaining constant quality control on site, which unfortunately has been stifled by quackery and flagrant non-compliance to due process.
Monitoring of sites by government officials, he said, is at intervals and mainly to verify the conformity of building construction with the approved building plan.
According to him, the frequent failure of pile foundations in recent time aroused the interest of BCPG Kosofe Cell which covers an expanse of weak soil terrain. The cell, he further said, organised a well-publicised forum where deep foundation practitioners, drillers, rig operators and other stakeholders revealed some sharp practices in the geo-technical and foundation sector. The consensus was a clarion call to the government to sanitise that sector.
Also identified is the lack of maintenance. To tackle this, the BCPG Ikeja Cell, according to Awobodu, organised a seminar, which attracted estate managers, landlords, landladies, building professionals and other stakeholders. The need for building owners and managers to allocate or reserve a percentage of the rent for maintenance of their buildings was also emphasised.
To Awobodu, the use of sub-standard sandcrete blocks for building also causes building collapse. “The prevalence of sub-standard blocks in the building market due to rising cost of block production, especially cement price prompted the BCPG Igando- Ikotun Cell to organise a workshop for block moulders or manufacturers on the importance of quality.
“It, therefore, recommended the institution of block production monitoring mechanism by the Standards Organisation of Nigeria and other relevant agencies,”he said.
Awobodu further disclosed that in July, the BCPG Ikorodu Cell addressed the issue of quality in steel reinforcement bars. “Some of the reinforcement bars being used for construction are produced from scraps. Steel manufacturers, distributors, suppliers, construction professionals and iron benders were in attendance to educate the people more,”he said.
To him, the solutions to building collapse should be derived from its causes. “If competent professionals are backed by the law to handle construction, from design through to post construction stages, there would be less crisis in the building construction sphere of Nigeria. The responsibility of appropriate designs should rest on qualified architects and engineers while that of the building production management should be borne by the professional resident builders,” Awobodu said.
The BCPG Technical Committees, he said, investigated the collapsed Synagogue Church building and that of Lekki Gardens. “The BCPG reports, which unravelled the actual causes of the two collapses, are currently being used by the government in the prosecution of the two cases in court,” he said.
This is a departure from the past where developers of collapsed buildings were left un-prosecuted.
The National Board of Technical Education, he said, has evolved a system of assessing the competence of building artisans towards skills and knowledge upgrade, through its National Vocational Qualifications Framework. “The NIOB is saddled with the responsibility of awarding the certificates, which naturally will help overcome the challenges of poor workmanship in the Nigerian building construction industry,” he said.
According to Awobodu, the BCPG, a non-government organisation, with special interest in construction, has a philosophy which focuses on prevention rather than solution after collapse, adding that being proactive is better than a reactive approach.
This, to him, is why the organisation has been embarking on activities, which promote standard construction in Nigeria. “For instance, builders and carpenters identified some faults in the timber products being used for roofing. Sizes of woods have been reduced below the recommended standards. Moreover, immature trees were being logged and sold to the market. These shortcomings have undermined the resistance of some roof to severe wind pressure, leading to collapse,”he said.
Attempts by The Nation to speak with Anifowoshe in the last three months have met brick walls, as questionnaire sent to him by email through the Ministry’s public affairs department and subsequent reminders have remained unanswered up till the time of going to press. The public affairs department was also several times contacted on phone but was told Anifowoshe was on Umrah (less hajj). Calls after his return from the trip also yielded no positive response.
However, going by LABSCA’s recent activities, a respite might be in the offing. Last month, the Agency began the first phase of demolition of distressed houses across the state. The agency has identified 114 buildings to be demolished in the state, with approval for 57 to be demolished in the first phase of the exercise.
According to LASBCA’s General Manager Lekan Shodeinde, the demolition will be done in phases immediately funding is available to the agency. “We have approval to pull down 57 houses, but we are starting with 13 out of the 34 buildings we have identified on the Lagos Island and which we have fund for. So, as we get more funds we will continue with the exercise,” he said.
