The collapse of a church building in Ojodu area of Lagos State, which led to the death of some workers at the site last week, may not be the end after all.
This is because many of the church leaders prefer to use either their relations or “wise men” among them to supervise the building projects instead of professionals who are trained for the job.
A member of the Nigerian Society of Engineers’ Investigative Committee on Collapsed Buildings, Mr. Benjamin Olamijulo, stated this in an interview with our correspondent.
He said, “Forty per cent of house collapse occurs in places of worship as they usually use their wise men who had struggled to build funny looking bungalows somewhere in the past as supervisors.
“As a Fellow of the Nigerian Society of Engineers and member of the investigative committee on collapsed buildings and a practicing engineer, I have observed that building owners will come to chartered engineers requesting for certificate of fitness for habitation for buildings marked as distressed.”
Olamijulo, who is the Managing Director of Accord Engineering, added that over 250 buildings in Lagos State marked for demolition over five years ago had not been taken down as their owners often hired thugs to frustrate the process.
He also wondered why building owners and some contractors would prefer substandard materials, which he likened to substandard drugs that killed massively.
“We should place value on human lives than personal gains in doing what we call business. How many people found culpable in building collapse investigations have been sent to jail even when lives are lost?,” he asked.
Apart from this, Olamijulo, who also spoke on challenges of housing provision in Nigeria, said standard shelter provision was a necessity and a right for every Nigerian.
He said the land meant for building residential houses must be at the right location with appropriate facilities like water, access road, power, security, recreational facilities, health centres and schools.
Such buildings, he added, must be built with appropriate and standard ventilation and aeration facilities.
Apart from few planned highbrow estates, he regretted that most houses built in the country lacked basic facilities like good windows, doors and toilet.
The problems being faced by prospective landlords before they can acquire land, according to him, must also be looked into if the issue of collapsed buildings is to be addressed.
Olamijulo one of the problems was land availability, with the few plots available either too expensive or the process of acquisition cumbersome.
He said, “Others are planning laws, which at times are uncoordinated and not professionally implemented. Then, t we have problems with our planning personnel as most buildings are planned and supervised by quacks, including the owners, some of whom are market women, pastors and bankers.
“Funding is another issue because lack of mortgage facilities encourages corruption and sharp practices with majority of projects abandoned or poorly finished. We should also not forget that poor urban planning and management are part of the reasons we have massive slums around cities.”
Olamijulo listed such areas where slums existed in major cities in the country as Ijora and Badia in Lagos, Nyanyan in Abuja and Borokiri waterside in Port Harcourt.
He also frowned on what he called the culture of corruption and unfaithfulness by real estate players, land vendors, artisans, suppliers, engineers, estate agents and government officials.
“Government is to blame for most of these problems as the citizens look up to it for appropriate policy formulation and seriousness in enforcement,” he added.
He, however, said that both the private sector and government had roles to play in order to move the building construction sector forward.
For the private sector, Olamijulo said big opportunities abounded in providing well planned estates through the provision of site and service schemes or direct construction of buildings and securing mortgage facilities for house buyers.
Apart from this, he said private sector players had the opportunity of manufacturing standard building materials like doors and windows instead of imported substandard products.
Training and retraining of professionals and artisans, education of members of the public on housing sector investment and partnering with government and financial institutions are some of the areas he said the private sector could come in.
For intending landlords, Olamijulo asked them to consult widely with right professionals before taking decisions on housing development.
He regretted that most people kept housing projects in secrecy thereby allowing for cheats to operate freely, adding that even husbands and wives often kept secrets from each other on house projects.
He advised those who wanted to own their houses to also do proper cash flow projections and be patient, adding that realistic housing development was very expensive and should not be at all cost.
Olamijulo warned against self supervision or use of half-baked artisans or jobless relations, which he said would increase the cost and diminish the quality even if the building did not collapse or sink.
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