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38— Vanguard, TUESDAY, MARCH 19, 2019
Building Collapse: Experts call for strict enforcement of
national building code
By Kingley Adegboye
As reactions continue to
trail last Wednesday’s
collapsed building at
Ita Faji Street, Lagos Island,
killing several children and
injuring scores of others,
professionals in the built
environment have noted that
strict enforcement of building
code by developers is the
panacea to the unabated
menace of building collapse in
the country,
Blaming incessant building
collapse on shoddy building
construction arising from use
of sub-standard materials all
in a bid to cut corners, the
professionals insist that strict
enforcement of the code will
eliminate quackery from
housing delivery while
standard buildings will be
guaranteed across the country.
Reacting to Ita Faji collapsed
building in Lagos Island and
the three-storey building
under construction that
collapsed in Ibadan within
days interval, the
spokesperson for Lagos state
chapter of Building Collapse
Prevention Guild BCPG, a
foremost body championing
advocacy on prevention of
building collapse in the
country, Arc. Augustine
Otuoke, said
“Ordinarily, if the Ita Faji
building was built
professionals you can be sure
that the story would have been
different. This goes to unearth
the fact that standard
processes and procedures for
construction must have been
thoroughly compromised in
terms of appropriate design ,
proper documentation, right
construction procedure and
professional supervision as
well as appropriate control by
personnel of the regulatory
agencies of government.
“Statistics obtained from
Lagos State building Control
Agency LASBCA, revealed
that over 75 per cent of the
buildings that are collapsing
are the ones built by
developers. This means that
developers in their quest to cut
corners to maximise profit,
habitually compromise and
jettison professionalism.
“The collapsed building we
are told, was a mix use
housing a school and
residents. The question
begging for answer is , was the
building originally designed
and built for mix use or was it
adapted for mix use after
construction?. The
superimposed load to habour
a school is not the same for a
residential use, particularly on
the upper floors.
“While the superimposed
load for a school is about
5.0kN/m2 , residential is
between 1.5kN/m2 to 2kN/m2
. By using a building
structurally designed as
residential for a school puts
•Ita Faji collapsed building
the lives of occupants at a
great risk and sets the building
on the path of collapse.
“The Lagos state
government has penciled
about 1000 distressed
buildings for demolition , what
is preventing this action ; lack
of administrative will and
We are yet to
implement the
Nigerian
building code
which covers that
if you are going
to build a high
rise building, it is
supposed to have
a certain
percentage of soil
volume or
capacity to hold it
politicking with the lives and
safety of residents of Lagos .
Government should rise up
and do the right thing
irrespective of whose ox is
gored , as a stitch in time saves
nine.
“Government should know
that many of it’s regulatory
personnel are negligent and
compromised. They should
embark on outsource of it’s
regulatory functions as the
task of preventing building
collapse is obviously getting
beyond the ability of the
government personnel to
handle.
Speaking with journalists
weekend over the Ita Faji
collapse, Amos Alao, an
architect and National
Secretary of Landscape
Architects of Nigeria SLAN,
said the strict enforcement of
the Nigerian building code will
avert the recurring building
collapse in Nigeria.
The landscape expert said it
was necessary to go back to
the drawing board in order to
avert recurring building
collapse in the country by
enforcing the national building
code
He said: “There have been
so many perspectives to
building collapse in Nigeria.
Some have talked about the
structural analysis,
architecture or engineering
failure, but little is said about
the land on which the
buildings are standing on.
“We are yet to implement the
Nigerian building code which
covers that if you are going to
build a high rise building, it is
supposed to have a certain
percentage of soil volume or
capacity to hold it. A lot of
things are wrong with the
Nigerian construction
industry, everybody has this
fault, from the manufacturers,
to the clients, the engineers
and the marketers. “There is
a Nigerian building code that
needs to be implemented to
overhaul the Nigerian
construction industry; we need
to start from the
implementation and
enforcement of the building
code.
“The code contains what a
building requires, for example
escape routes, exit routes, all
these parameters are stated in
the building code. He said the
building code should contain
the provision of facilities a
building requires so that in
emergency cases, disaster
managers could quickly rescue
victims like in the recent
building collapse in Lagos.
“The Federal Ministry of
Power, Works and Housing
should be charged with the
responsibility of implementing
and enforcing the Nigerian
building code. With the
building code, the
responsibility of every
engineer will be clearly
outlined in the construction of
any building without crosscarpeting
responsibilities”,
Alao said.
Alao, who also called for the
vetting of building materials
imported into the country,
while importers of fake
building materials are to be
brought to book. He disclosed
that engineers have always
had the bulk of the blame for
most of the collapses in the
country, adding that they are
either blamed for structural
designs or low quality
materials.
“It is high time we
sanctioned the importers of
inferior building materials.
The engineer purchases iron
rods from the market that do
not fit the strength
specification for the building
because its quality was
reduced by the marketers. It
is not the job of the engineer
to check how strong the metal
is, if he completely trusts the
marketers.
“In most building collapse,
the client/owner of the
building should be held
responsible also. The
engineers may complain about
the quality of the building
materials and the clients can
insist they go ahead. When
such buildings collapse, the
professionals are always held
responsible and the clients are
nowhere to be found. Every
developer is responsible for
everybody on the site.
“The expert also called on
builders to adhere to the books
when constructing a building
and not cutting corners.
Nigeria can get building
construction right with plenty
of research. For instance, the
oldest storey building in
Badagry. We have others also
at Calabar and the first
suspended floor in Lokoja. All
of these buildings were erected
by Nigerians with the input of
the Whites, meaning that it is
possible to have good quality
buildings in Nigeria.
“Why our buildings presently
cannot stand the test of time
is largely because of the
materials used. For instance,
the textbook says use clean
water to mix cement, but here
in Nigeria our water is not
clean. When we make use of
unclean water to mix cement,
we should not expect to get the
same strength with cement
mixed with clean water”, he
stated.