Stakeholders Seek Collaboration With States To Curb Building Collapse

Stakeholders in the building industry have urged state governments to collaborate with professional bodies, in order to reduce the frequency of building collapses in the country.

The chairman of the Lagos chapter of the Nigerian Institute of Building (NIOB), Mr Lucky Isename, who stated this at the institute’s facilities’ management training, held in Lagos, said that saddling the professionals with the responsibility of monitoring buildings or construction from the beginning to the end would curb the menace

It would be  recalled that the state has been witnessing an incessant building collapse with a seven-storey  building under construction at Banana Island, Ikoyi, caving in, followed by another three-story building at GRA, Apapa, under construction too.

Isename said the government needs to empower the professionals in the building industry, register them and give them the responsibility of monitoring buildings.

According to him, Lagos State is big, saying a building in a highbrow area like Ikoyi, built from foundation to the seventh floor, did not happen overnight.

“There are government agencies that check construction and buildings, and the building that collapsed at Ikoyi was not a bungalow. Is it that the agency’s staff did not go through that area, did not enter that estate, or whoever is in charge did not see the buildings? If they could not see those, tell me how they would see what is happening in the rural area,” he said.

On his part, the president of the Nigeria Academy of Facility Managers, Dr Akinshola Olufemi, said the training is apt in today’s Nigeria, especially when the people think any beat environment professional is qualified to practise as a facility manager.