Kunle Awobodu is the pioneer President of the Building Collapse Prevention Guild. He is also the immediate past President of the Nigerian Institute of Builders. In this interview with EDIDIONG IKPOTO, he discusses the unyielding spate of building collapse in Lagos State and what regulators can do to curb the menace
A representative of the company that built the Banana Island building that recently collapsed in Lagos denied reports that the building did not have approval. He also claimed that the company followed due protocol and that the collapse was an act of nature. Is it possible for a building to collapse even after all necessary protocols have been observed?
The information we heard was that Joe Faraday’s site was well fortified and officials of the Lagos State Building Collapse Agency were not getting easy access to the site. Some members of BCPG have gone to examine the site. They said that integrity tests would be carried out on the existing buildings. There is no substance in Anthony Onama’s claim because our people have gone to the site and I’ve spoken with some of them. Our senior engineer did some analysis of the design.
Why didn’t they conduct these integrity tests before now?
They can’t be doing integrity tests on all sites if there is no suspected problem. They are conducting an integrity test because one of the buildings collapsed, causing vibrations in the environment. So, there is a need to go and study the other buildings. If you are having several construction projects, if one fails, others become suspects. They (the government) are afraid of further building collapse crises. So, if they are doing integrity tests, it could be that they are suspecting other shoddy jobs.
Some time ago, you mentioned that professional builders had made some recommendations to the government that could help cauterise this menace of building collapse. You also noted that the government lacked the political will to implement these recommendations. Why is this so?
That is why we said that there is an obvious dichotomy between policy formulation and implementation. It is very annoying that LASBCA people claimed that they were not given access to check whatever they were doing on the site. There is something called stage inspection of work, where at intervals you will be at the site to confirm what is being done; to check and sign off on adherence to standard specifications.
Last year, Lagos State appointed a new Commissioner for Physical Planning as efforts geared towards addressing this menace of building collapse. This hasn’t still translated to the expected results, why?
That is a very fundamental question. The old commissioner resigned as a result of the collapse at Oniru. The idea was to bring in another hand. Under him, there was a building collapse in Mushin. There was also another one in Ikeja. This recent one is even more embarrassing because it happened at Banana Island of all places. It is difficult to defend. There were conflicting reasons. Initially, we heard that it was a prop that hit one of the columns. Another time, they said there was no approval.
If the government wants to check a place, it will have access. When the government did not have access to the collapsed building in Ikoyi, it went there with the police and arrested the developers. We have videos of it. The government went there with the police and overpowered their security men. At the end of the day, they went back to the site to continue working. This is why people are worried.
According to the Lagos State building stipulations, every construction project must employ the services of a registered builder as a resident expert. Is this being adhered to?
That is under the Lagos State building regulations. It is part of the challenges. Unfortunately, people don’t pay attention to the licence of those who are working for them. They don’t try to investigate if these people are licensed by their professional and regulatory bodies to practise the role they are playing on the site. If you engage a builder, without looking at his qualifications, and without investigating their certificates, it is a common error.
Most of these developers, who are not professionals in the construction world, keep on constructing by direct labour instead of engaging well-established construction companies to handle high-rise construction. These people, by direct labour, will engage in the construction of high-rise buildings.
We have said that the government should not allow this to take place. High-rise buildings require profound expertise. There are special techniques required. But when you embark on the construction of high-rise buildings by direct labour, it is not acceptable. Developers who are more or less like businessmen will be recruiting construction workers to carry out direct labour. The risk involved is high. This is now common in Lagos and other towns in Nigeria, even Abuja.
The government should stop this practice. The developers, on their own, will start to build an in-house construction team. Should this be allowed? No. High-rise buildings are meant for well-organised construction companies with all the necessary plants and equipment, professionals, and expertise to execute the project.
Some of the developers are procuring piling equipment, embarking on piling work by themselves. Like this one (Banana Island), I think they are also piling by themselves, rather than outsourcing the contract to specialists in that sector. Most of these developers are turning their organisations into construction companies in order to save costs. This is a dangerous practice, and is something that must be corrected.
Lagos State has different agencies set up to regulate the built environment. Does the state need to create more apparatuses to be more effective with its regulatory activities?
I’ve said this many times, monitoring officers cannot be held responsible for the day-to-day running of a site, and day-to-day quality control of building production. Certified and licenced professional builders are expected to be on the site to manage the day-to-day building production process. It is not because of the pecuniary gains. It is how somebody bears the responsibility to deliver the project successfully. A monitoring officer will only come once in a while and ask relevant questions — who is the builder that is managing the production process? He can ask for the manual, the drawings, and the designs and then compare them to what is being executed on-site. That is just a temporary system of checking what is being done.
The primary assignment of a monitoring officer from LASBCA is to get to the site and find out if the project has an approved building plan, and if it has a qualified builder who is managing the building production process. The architect, and the civil construction engineer may come once in a while, but the day-to-day running of a site, and managing the building process, lies on that builder. He will be held liable if something within his control goes wrong.
So, monitoring officers should, first of all, establish the fact that in every building site, there must be a builder. He will check if there is a licensed builder on site. He will collect the name of that builder and find out his registration number and cross-check with the professional body. Once that is documented, he will know that on this particular site, there is somebody that will be held liable if something goes wrong with the building production process.
By the next time, he comes to that site, he will have a meeting with that person and ask questions to find out that everything is going according to specifications. That would solve most of the problems we are having on site. The major challenge is at the construction level after they have approved designs. At the construction stage, construction may not comply with the design approved. It is on-site that people shift on quality, on standards, but when you are a professional that has your licence at stake, even at night, you will be on the ground that the right thing is done because the building artisans sometimes have their shortcomings. When they get tired, the standard of workmanship may drop. These artisans, by their training, should not be left to work alone. They have limitations. Someone needs to be on the ground to supervise them.
As stakeholders, what have you done on your part to stem this tide of crumbling buildings?
We have been doing a lot that has prevented greater crises in the built environment. On our own, the system of the Building Collapse Prevention Guild, we have sects in each chapter. In Lagos State, we have different sects. That Banana Island is under BCPG in Ikoyi. Our members pay attention to construction works within their vicinity. When they notice shoddy practices, they notify the secretariat and they would notify the government agencies to go there and put things in order. We have been doing that because the government cannot cover the rapid developments taking place in the built environment in a place like Lagos.
