Institute Seeks Law Against Careless Building

Nigerian Building & Road Research Institute has appealed to the National Assembly to enact a law that could guard against reckless professionals to minimise or bring to an end the rampant collapse of buildings in parts of the country.

The appeal came from the director-general and chief executive officer of the Nigerian Building & Road Research Institute (NBRRI), Professor Samson Duna at a public lecture on ‘Building Collapse in Nigeria: A Preventable Human Infliction’ organised by the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University (ATBU) in Bauchi.

“We are calling on the National Assembly to enact a law so that anybody that is found wanting as far as carelessness or man-made error is concerned somewhere, the person involved should be punished or face the music to serve as  a deterrent to others,” he said.

He said since the history of the institute, they had never had a case where somebody was punished by being taken to court or jailed for being responsible.

Professor Duna also stressed the need for professionals be involved in maintaining and supervising building projects, especially high rise buildings, with funds for the supervision being incorporated in the cost of the project.

“No equipment for excavation and we know that these buildings will continue to fail. We are not praying for anything like that to happen in Bauchi State, but if it does, do we have an excavator nearby?”.

NBRRI also advocated that Structural Integrity Assessment be carried out on all existing structures built over a period of 15 years with emphasis on areas or locations that have experienced bomb blasts.