Expert canvasses urban regeneration for Lagos Island, others

Immediate Past President of the Nigerian Institute of Building (NIOB), Mr. Kunle Awobodu, has canvassed the rapid urban regeneration of the metropolis in order to forestall frequent collapse of buildings in Lagos Island and Ebute Meta,  locations where the incidence is prevalent.

Speaking with Nigerian Tribune on Sunday, Awobodu said it was quite unfortunate that sub-standard building constructions were allowed to hold sway in these neighbourhoods in the past.

This ugly practice, he noted has led to the dilapidation of existing buildings in these locations.

To halt frequent collapse of buildings in these enclaves, the former NIOB president urged government to look for a situation of demolishing these distressed structures and redevelop them, hence the call for rapid urban regeneration.

Awobodu urged the state government to be proactive about the proposal, pointing out that despite the Lagos State Building Control Agency’s Regulations that was ratified by the House of Assembly in 2019, with other states embracing the initiative, enforcement challenges have remained a denominator of the “implementation equation.”

He disclosed that one of the local developers confined in him that they were not professional builders or engineers but traders, who did not realise the implications of what they were doing then.

According to him, he urged that if those defect buildings in Lagos Island could be demolished to give ways to quality housing production.

Statistics

In his analysis of 461 incidents of building collapse in Nigeria in the last 47 years (October, 1974 to July, 2021), Awobodu stated that Lagos topped other states with 295 incidents, amounting to 65 percent of the cases in Nigeria.

Lagos Island alone, he said, accounted for 67 (23 percent) of the incident in the state.

According to him, within the  period of 47 years,  Abuja recorded 16  incidents of building collapse; Oyo -16 cases , Anambra -15, Kano -9, Ondo -9, Abia- 9, Kwara -8, Rivers-8, Delta-8, Enugu -7, Ogun-7, Plateau -6, Kaduna -6, Edo -6, Imo -5, Osun-5, Benue -3 and Adamawa -3 incidents. Others  such as Ebonyi  have 3 cases, Niger -2, Kebbi -2, Ekiti -2, Cross River-2, Sokoto -1, Bauchi -1, AkwaIbom -1, Kogi -1 and Katsina -1 cases respectively.

While blaming activities of quacks and pervasive ignorance for most incidents of building collapse, Awobodu said the outcomes of many investigations of collapsed buildings in the country had revealed a prime cause – quackery.

He suggested teamwork among professionals in the built environment industry to end the menace of building collapse in the industry.

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