BUILDING COLLAPSE: QUACK ENGINEERS SHOULD BE HELD RESPONSIBLE – INDUSTRY EXPERTS
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Ife Adewole
The 30-year-old storey building that collapsed on Wednesday, March 13, 2019 at the Ita-Faji area of Lagos Island and the recently collapsed building in Bode, Ibadan – Oyo State on Friday, has made professionals in the building industry to caution quack engineers and their clients to desist from the use of substandard materials.
The Civil Engineers, proffer solutions to the continuous cases of building collapses in the country, listed among other solutions the need for the training and retraining of building practitioners, strict adherence to quality building materials according to specifications and faithfulness to professional ethics.
The experts, who are Lagos based Civil Engineers analyses the pros and cons of the likely causes of collapsed buildings in the countryg. They said;
Quality of materials used is sometimes compromised, qualified personnel (Engineers) should always be consulted for supervision. Tayo Awodun
I put all the blames on the regulatory authorities and professional bodies. They are to approve and sensitize the public who are novice about Structural Stability of buildings. The necessity to involve trained professionals, dangers and risks involve in patronising Quacks, and the use of appropriate material for structures. Yinka Jacob
The solution to building collapse in Lagos is actually intertwined, all relevant building agencies and professional bodies should be more involved in the construction process, they need to put their cap on now from design to construction stage. Key elements to be considered important are; the right design structural knowledge; experienced personnel who are capable to construct buildings as designed by the structural engineer, the use of quality building materials by contractors. Sherifat Adeleye
Normally when you are on a well-organised site that deal with serious project, it has to be a team work but there is no way a builder should have a final say on structural elements because their forte is about executing the instructions of architect, engineers and M&E. Jide Adekanye
Artisan should be well trained on specific jobs, proper and adequate supervision by the relevant authorities, standardisation of stage construction must be carried out periodically, developers must be well monitored during construction works. Hakeem Bello
Approval of houses is now primarily to generate funds for the governments, not to ensure that safety standard is maintained. For instance, you will see Baba Sikirat engaging in construction work while Engr. Tunji is on the road driving cab to survive. Standard organization is dead, so many inferior materials in market. Most approval offices will not treat files from Engineers outside with speed, so clients will rather give approval officers to do drawings and nonsense is done by them and approved by them. Lekan Oshinowo
The main problem with collapse buildings has to do with either improper design or bad construction practice. That is; Client do not engage qualified professional, (Registered Engineers or Technologist) many artisans finds it hard to have proper understanding of structural design output, corner cutting or fraudulent sharp practices. Concrete batching error; this is when the concrete is not properly vibrated, impurity among the local materials, wrong reinforcement and lower diameter to replace designs. Dapo Oyebamiji
Nigeria does not have a system that enforces rules and regulations, awarding of construction work to non-professionals, use of substandard materials in commercial areas eventually do result to the collapse of a building construction. Greedy developers’ has contributed a lot to the dilemma; they are always good at converting a building original design for bungalow to a storey or more. Mrs Bello
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