Investigations into building collapse are not waste of time —Ayinde

Contrary to certain opinion from the general public, the President of the Nigerian Institute of Town Planners (NITP), Mr Olutoyin Ayinde, has said that investigations into causes of frequent building collapse in the country cannot be regarded as a waste of time.

Speaking with the Nigerian Tribune in an exclusive interview in Lagos, the number one town planner in the country explained that every investigation is aimed at getting to the root of the matter.

According to him, the processes and various strategies adopted for any investigation on building collapse have become case studies, pointing out that investigation is like conducting a study.

«There is usually something that comes out of the study. You may decide not to make use of it,» he said.

Ayinde›s response became imperative following different opinions about various panels of investigations/enquires set up by successive governments and professional bodies to unravel the cause of frequent building collapse in the country with the aim of preventing further occurrence.

Nigerian Tribune gathered that despite various reports and recommendations of investigation panels on how to halt the menace, buildings have not stopped to collapse in most Nigerian cities.

This singular issue has made citizens begin to see the setting up of panels of investigations as a waste of time and government›s resources.

However, Ayinde, who was the Chairman of Investigation Panel into the 21-storey building collapse in Ikoyi, has this to say: «investigations are not waste of time. Every investigation tries to get to the root of the problem. They are not entirely a waste.

«As a matter of fact, students in construction should be made to watch those investigations live so that they can learn from other experienced professionals how to go about investigating things like this.

«The process and various strategies is a case study on its own. Investigation is like conducting a study. There is usually something that comes out of the study, you may decide not to make use of it.»

On lack of implementation of outcomes/recommendations of the investigation panels by the government, Ayinde said that nobody saw any of the report or the White Paper published.

Lack of publication of the report, he said has made it difficult to really ascertain the recommendations of the report or what the white paper is doing.

He said: «For example, the Tribunal that I chaired, there were 28 recommendations. Those 28 recommendations were not published. Then the White Paper agreed and adopted 26 of the recommendations. Again, those 26 were not published. The White Paper rejected two and those two were not published. So when there is no publication of a report, the recommendations and what was adopted, it makes it a little bit difficult to monitor our progress.

«It is difficult for us to know whether we are making progress or not. So it’s not about the number of panels now. I think we have too many panels. Various institutes and various professionals have adduced reasons; people have been given the benefits during their doctoral research and master degree research on building collapse, we should have solved it.

«So if we have not solved it, the reason can only be human. It’s not divine nor spiritual, it can only be human, and until we decide to take the bull by the horn to address it, we won›t be able to solve it,» Ayinde said.

On flagrant disregard for government›s notices by developers and homebuilders,  Ayinde, a former Commissioner for Physical Planning and Urban Development in Lagos State,  is of the opinion that anyone that  continue work when notices have been served has just declared a war between him and the authority.

And when such occurrence becomes frequent, he described it as a weakness of people in government.

He said «This is weakness. It is not government.  It is the people in government. Government is not an inanimate subject. Government is made up of human beings and everybody has a role to play. There are times people see the governor as a government, No! The governor is also playing a role in government. In fact, he is not supposed to be concerned with the issue like building collapse because there are people who are trained to do that.

«Unfortunately, when a thing like this happens in any state for that matter, the buck stops on the table of the governor. But the truth is that government is a system. It’s a mechanism that has various parts. So when you say a site has been given notices and work continues, it is the failure of the system. Somebody is helping the system to fail; somebody is not doing his work right and, at the top, they may not know he is doing his work right until building collapse happens.»

According to him, it should never be said that government served notices and someone else unsealed it.

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