The immediate past Branch Chairman of the Nigerian Society of Engineers, Bwari Branch, Dr Halimat Adediran, speaks with Sami Olatunji on the issue of collapsed buildings in the country and what should be done to arrest the situation
There are constant reports of building collapses, especially in Lagos. What would you say are the major reasons for these?
Apart from natural disasters, a building can collapse for so many reasons, but I will just mention a few. One is the entrance of quacks into the construction industry. Now, we have quacks at all levels in the construction industry. Who is a quack? A quack is anyone who dishonestly claims that he/she has acquired the requisite training/knowledge in a particular field but has no certification or licence to prove that. Such a person is fake, fraudulent and has no integrity to deliver the expected standard/quality on any project/job given to him/her.
Everyone playing any role on a construction site must be a certified professional, right from the person carrying out the soil test to the architects, civil engineers, mechanical and electrical engineers, structural engineers, quantity surveyors, masons, plumbers, painters, and carpenters. For instance, to be a licensed/registered engineer, you must have gone through the mandatory four years of training after graduating from a five-year course in the university. So, it takes a minimum of nine years for anyone to become a licensed/registered engineer.
Therefore, no licensed engineer would want to be associated with any substandard job that would cost his/her hard-earned licence, likewise other professionals in the construction industry. You will agree with me that the need to discourage quackery and always engage certified professionals in any construction work cannot be overemphasised.
Is this why quacks often do shoddy jobs?
A quack can easily do a shoddy construction work for immediate gains because he /she has little or nothing to lose, and most times, no professional body can sanction him/her as he/she is not a registered member, though the government has the power to bring him/her to book as a person. In other countries like Togo, which is close to Nigeria, all artisans are well trained and duly certified before they are permitted to work on any project, likewise other professionals in the construction industry.
When you compare the job done by a Nigerian tiler and a tiler from Togo, you will see that the job of the one from Togo is far better in terms of quality and finishing. My advice is that developers and contractors should always engage the services of certified professionals for any kind of construction/building project. Also, there is the issue of the use of substandard materials in construction. When substandard materials are used in construction, there is a 80 per cent possibility of failure or collapse of the structure erected.
All the construction materials, including the blocks, sand, cement, reinforcement, among others, must be of good quality and must meet the approved standard. For instance, there are different types of reinforcement for high-rise buildings and bungalows, and if you do not comply with these standards and specifications as contained in the structural drawing, you can be sure that a failure of the structure is most likely to occur. If you use a block with poor binding components, a wrong gauge of reinforcements and sharp sand with a high level of silt, the structure will definitely collapse – it’s just a matter of time. There is also improper soil test/geotechnical investigation.
How important is soil tests in construction?
This is one very important area that is not given the utmost attention sometimes. There is a need to carry out all the necessary soil tests to determine the bearing capacity of the soil and the stabilization of the structure, especially for high-rise buildings. As we all know that there are different types of soil, like sandy soil, loamy soil, humus soil, clay soil, silt, gravel, rocky, among others. The building will definitely be standing on the ground, so the knowledge of the properties of the soil plays a critical role in determining the type of structure that it can support as well as the type and depth of the foundation.
It also determines the type of materials to be used for construction, and the height, size and weight of the construction. Failure to test site soils adequately and correctly can cause collapse as well as huge financial losses. The different types of soil testing for construction include: gravity test, moisture test, plastic test, shrinkage test, dry density test, liquid test, sand replacement method, core cutter test and proctor’s compaction test. One very good example of soil failure is the leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy. In the city of Pisa, it was originally designed to stand at 60 metres, but its current height is 56.86m (highest side) and 56.67m (on the lowest side). The tower has recorded a nearly four-degree lean as a result of an unstable foundation that could have been caused by poor soil testing analysis or no soil test at all. However, its foundation was injected with some cement grouting in 1920 to stabilise it as it is today.
Can government agencies be faulted for the constant collapse?
Another cause of building collapse is the weak enforcement framework. As we all know, there are different agencies of government saddled with the responsibility of control and regulation to ensure compliance with the approved standards at various levels of construction, starting from the land survey to the approval of the building plan, to soil test and structural designs. However, they seem to be ineffective. They are sometimes weak in the area of enforcement. Therefore, developers /contractors are often not deterred from sharp practices that could result in the eventual failure of the building. Between January 2020 and this year, we have had several cases of collapsed buildings in various parts of Nigeria. How many of them did we hear that were arrested, prosecuted and serving jail terms? The answer is none to the knowledge of the public. If there is any, kindly bring it to the knowledge of the public. Government agencies can be faulted for constant collapse as these agencies fail to ensure proper supervision and quality control at various stages of the building while under construction. Some of these buildings that collapse might have been prevented from collapsing had these government agencies performed their duties as expected. We have also heard of cases of the alleged involvement of some of these government agencies in some sort through compromise and corrupt practices, which make it difficult for them to mete out any kind of sanction to defaulters. China, the USA, UK and other developed countries with numerous high-rise buildings that have been standing for so many years rarely have any case of collapsed buildings as all the concerned government agencies do their jobs as expected with zero tolerance for corruption.
There are reports of arrests of developers of collapsed buildings. Do you think this move is necessary and will yield any results?
It is necessary that developers of collapsed buildings are not only arrested but prosecuted. When the public sees that the government will not hesitate to investigate, prosecute and jail any developer or government agent found guilty in any case of a collapsed building no matter his/her status in the society, there will be a few or no case of building collapse. The fact that a developer/contractor could lose almost all of his investment when the building project collapses seems not to be enough to deter them. The public is anxiously waiting to see how justice will be served on those involved in the case of the Ikoyi collapsed building in Lagos, particularly and in other parts of the country.
What is the Nigerian Society of Engineers doing in this regard?
The Nigerian Society of Engineers is working through the Property Investment & Failure Analyses Committee with the Engineering Regulatory & Monitoring team of COREN to halt quackery in the engineering profession. Most project managers and personnel rendering one service or the other in the construction industry are engineers. Therefore, NSE is doing everything possible to collaborate with government agencies and other professional bodies to filter out the quacks that could easily get involved in unprofessional conduct that would result in the destruction of properties and loss of lives.
What advice do you have for ordinary Nigerians interested in building any property?
For ordinary Nigerians who are interested in building a property, they should not engage a quack but ensure that certified professionals with the required experience are engaged at all levels of the construction process. Get the right approvals and insist that all works are carried out according to the standard and specifications. Especially for multilevel buildings, there must be strict compliance with the structural designs, as any deviation may result in uneven load distribution in the structure which will result in a collapse/failure.
There is also the issue of the high cost of housing. What are the reasons for this?
There is a rise in the cost of housing due to the high cost of building materials in the country, which can be attributed to the lack of local production of most of these materials. Our iron and steel industry has gone comatose for several years, leaving us with little or no local production of iron and steel. Most of the building materials we use now are imported at a very high exchange rate. For instance, the value of the naira to US dollars two years ago is not the same as today, and since the cost of importing building materials has increased, it will translate into an increase in the cost of housing in Nigeria.
How can Nigeria reduce the cost of building?
To reduce the cost of housing, there has to be a concerted effort on the part of the government and other stakeholders to revive our iron and steel industries, as well as enhance local production of other materials used for building/construction. We also need to improve our foreign exchange earnings in order to strengthen our naira, which will translate into a reduction in the cost of importation.
What is the role of engineers in nation-building?
For any nation to achieve any form of development, its indigenous engineers must play a critical role. Engineers are the backbone of nation-building as engineering itself is about innovation, design, and maintaining systems, products and equipment to the benefit of mankind. Other developed nations of the world engaged their own engineers to a large extent in achieving the level of development that they have today. Nigeria has very capable engineers that have distinguished themselves in their various fields of expertise. This country must give them a chance to build the Nigeria that we all dream about.
