Former Chairman, Nigeria Institution of Estate Surveyors & Valuers, Lagos State chapter, Dotun Bamigbola has said though the details of the cause of the highbrow Banana lsland’s recent collapse are not out, the causes of building failures are multi-faceted as observed overtime.
He hinted that the overbearing influence of owners and developers in dictating actions which should be strictly under the responsibility of construction industry professionals to their taste or for maximising income is a serious challenge.
He said: “If you meet your Doctor, you listen and follow all instructions no matter how rich you are or the fact that you own your body. The same principle should apply in construction because the error of judgment, especially by a non-professional, can cause more than one fatality in a situation of building collapse.’’
Bamigbola also said a single building collapse could ruin an industry, if care was not taken.
According to him, another reason is where the professionals may not have the will to insist that some steps are beyond the owners’ capacity to take based on professional standards.
He lamented that experts for fear of competition or losing a contract yield to unprofessional practice by their clients.
He stated that this happens because there are no institutional camaraderie to protect various professionals in the built industry.
The former NIESV chief lamented that while the professionals compete against themselves in the various fields and across fields and within the industry, the clients take advantage to underprice, underpay, undervalue and dictate the standards for the professionals when it should be the other way round.
He spoke on the problem of ubiquitous substandard construction materials all over the country, from the suppliers to the developer.
According to him, some take advantage of this to the detriment of the projects, the industry and the people who suffer physically and emotionally in the aftermath of this collapse.
A lot of materials are sourced from outside Nigeria so we don’t have the Nigerian standard mostly he stated.
On the way out, he suggested that industry regulators should up their game. Specifically he mentioned the Ministry of Physical Planning with all their agencies across many states.
He said: “The political influence in all their processes has a huge impact. From approval to supervision and monitoring, the political class are too involved. In other climes, politicians have no influence in a lot of things like we have here. These are professional matters when it comes to construction and it should remain so”.
“On a number of occasions, it has been reported that agencies setup to monitor developments where not allowed to do so because of political influence. These are just some of the challenges leading to various incidents of building collapse”, he added.
