In a manner suggestive of resignation to fate, professionals in the built environment may have come to the conclusion that incidence of building collapse in Nigeria, especially in Lagos State, has defied all known solutions.
The frustration was expressed over the last week’s building collapse at the Ilasamaja area of Lagos State, just barely two weeks that such incident occurred in Lekki, also in Lagos, with innocent lives sent to their untimely death!
However, professionals and other stakeholders’ concern borne out of seeming indifference by the officials to the preventive efforts being made by some of them who are striving to either eliminate or reduce to the barest minimum, issue of building collapse, particularly, in Lagos.
Expressed his sadness over the incessant cases of building collapse and efforts being made so far, President, Building Collapse Prevention Guild (BCGP), Mr. Kunle Awobodu, who is also, Second Vice-President, Nigerian Institute of Builders (NIOB), said officials attitude to the issue left much to be desired.
“It always beat one’s imagination the kind of enthusiasm government agencies and their officials use to display in the event of building collapse.
“As if such ugly development is the best way to display their professional efficiency, one will see rescue agencies falling over each other, try at outdoing themselves, ostensibly to impress their employers.
“But the relevant question to ask is which one is better, to prevent collapse of building or to allow a building to collapse and engage in rescue mission?”, Awobodu said.
Proffering solution to the situation, he suggested the need to first identify the causes, which he said have been emphasising all the while by different professionals.
According to him, those who are responsible for building collapse seldom punished. “We have a lot of cases where government will just bark and not bite, until another incident occurs.
“If somebody is punishes, and get known to the people, sanity will be restored to the built environment”, he concluded.
To another commentator, Dr Davies Ogunma, root causes of building failures in Nigeria could be traced to many factors that should be addressed as quickly as possible.
First, he noticed the design faults, which he said constitute 50 per cent, while faults on construction site, are responsible for over 40 per cent and product failure,10 per cent.
“Researchers and scholars agreed and equally ascribed faulty design, faulty execution of work and use of faulty materials to be major causes of building collapse.
“Causes can then be classified under six major factors namely; bad design: these include architectural designs and other professional inputs. Starting a design without proper feasibility studies, soil tests and analysis and so on”.
Besides, it was noted that inadequate or poor design details, poor supervision, substandard materials specification and faulty or lack of schedules, that also includes errors of computations, use of inaccurate data are attributed to building failures.
Another important factor is the use of unqualified ‘professionals and artisans by the developers simply to cut corners.
Another BCGP member who visted the site of the collapse 4-storey building Ilasamaja site, who simply identified himself as Mr. Philip, also a quantity surveyor, also expressed doubt if proper procedures were followed.
“From what we gathered, it was discovered that the project was hastily being constructed and officials from Lagos State Building Materials Test Authority will soon come out with their findings to determine the quality of materials used. Not until then one can conclude on what truly transpired.”
However, suggestion from various commentators has been the need for government to employ services of professionals in monitoring construction activities in Lagos.
“From available evidences, government lacks enough personnel capable of monitoring the entire Lagos, apart from officials tendency to compromise.
“If government can look towards that direction, certainly, much would be achieved”. Said Mr. Muniru Adams, also a stakeholder in the built environment.