National Building Code; Solution to building collapse

Bldr Chucks Omeife is the 17^th president of the Nigerian Institute of Building, NIOB. In this exclusive and extensive interview, he spoke on the building profession, his plans for the institute and other national issues. Excerpts:

Who is a builder?

Bldr Chucks Omeife, NIOB President

A builder is a person who must have had the required and necessary qualification, gone to the training of the Nigerian Institute of Building, NIOB and thereafter went further to do the interview, which if he is successful, he becomes enlisted in the list of builders, thereafter go for registration.

Are you saying people in other engineering fields are not builders?

Basically, there is a no misconception on who a builder is. As it is, in building profession, due to increase of complexity and dynamism, it has been broken down to specialization. What that means is that, yes, most of us came out of civil engineering and due to specialization, people are coming out from that place. As the world progresses, we however thought to have an impression that pertains mainly to the issues of building and specification, that was why the building profession came on board as a missing link in the chain operational building environment. Today, the course content of the builder in training is very unique, it focuses on building, building facilities, building infrastructure, building structures and just building in all areas. The civil engineers might have idea of what building is but in training they are far from what building is and this is where we come in.

Are you aware of some institutions that still claim to be builders?

They cannot claim to be builders because the law is very clear and even their parent body cannot claim they are builders. An engineer has input in the construction of building, we appreciate that, we appreciate their effort, a civil engineer input in a building is just making specification on how a building will stand structurally. The process of constructing of the building is the clear responsibility of a builder. A builder is trained in construction process. Anybody who claims to be a builder who is not a builder must have it through other means but not by training, that is where the difference comes in, we are talking of people who have learnt it as a deliberate means of knowledge it.

What course must one read to qualify to be a builder?

Today, if you go through Joint Admission Matriculation Board, JAMB syllabus or tertiary institutions in the country, there is a course they call BUILDING. It is not about engineering but it is BUILDING as a course. It is under the faculty of Environmental Study. You go to polytechnic, it is called Building Technology. Very clear, so there is no misconception about what building is and if you go to the course content, you will be amazed because this country is going to lose a lot, if they refuse to allow the builders to perform their roles, the builders have not be allowed to take their rightful place in the country. I am happy that today, many of our colleagues are realizing that except the builder who is at the centre of the industry is allowed to blossom and flourish and take responsibility, it will be difficult for things to develop.

In other words, if you read course outside of building, you cannot qualify to be a builder?

No, but unfortunately, the institute is very liberal, in the sense that, if you read any other course apart from building, as long as it is construction-related, you have the opportunity to come in, if you so wish to grow at the level of your admission.

What do you think is responsible for collapse of building?

The issue of collapse of building has become a thing of shame and has brought embarrassment to this country. It is caused by people who have no business in building. Nigeria has no business with collapse of building; the reason is because Nigeria is not a country that has problems like other countries in terms of weather condition or bad soil.  Our soil can carry any type of building, so why would a building collapse? If you ask me, it is caused by lack of regulatory body, we have outdated regulation, people are more daring because everybody is shouting about building collapse but nobody is prosecuted or punishment meted on anybody by government. So what you see is no regulation, no punishment and people are becoming bold to take risk and do what they are not trained for, that is the unfortunate thing.

You mean, you disagree with some experts that claimed that collapse is due to old age or lack of maintenance?

Let’s take it this way; the issue of building collapse has many angles to it. When a building collapses, the first thing that comes to your mind is that the building is old, but that is not the case in this country. Collapse might be caused by old age or misuse of the building; or the building was meant to be a bungalow or a one-storey building, suddenly the owner converted it to three or four storey building, of course such building is prone to collapse because it is not designed to be a four-storey building.  It will suddenly collapse because of old age after a long time of use just like human being, buildings have expiration, what you need to do is to pull it down.

Again, building collapse because of quacks; people who are not trained in the profession have thrown caution to the wind and trying to construct building by themselves. For me, this is what government should be worry about; it shows people’s lack of respect for law. If a man who is not trained by law who is not a builder undertakes construction, it is criminal. Building collapses in different forms but the number one that I am worry about is the one that collapse during construction and these are the one that are happening in this country. When building is going on and there is a sudden collapse, lives are lost, money is wasted and the economy is affected. So that is what government should start talking about and the only way to prevent is to ensure that there are adequate regulations in place.

The reason why we have more buildings collapsing is because government has refused to think ahead. What I am worry about is those areas of regulation, that knows what to do and refuse to do it. For example, if you are going to construct a building in this country, in that regulation, you must produce a building plan. The law says you must provide the drawing and others but who carries out the construction of the building is open. My question is why are they afraid to regularize that area which is very important to this industry? Why can’t they include in the specification that you must provide somebody who in this case must be a builder in the issue of construction so that we can start having responsible people who can start handling construction of building. The advantage is that if a builder handles a collapse building, he will be easy to trace, he can be prosecuted.

A collapsed  building 

What I am saying is that, it makes people to be responsible to this country but unfortunately there is no law that pertains to this issue of building collapse. There is no law that says before commencing construction, let us know the builder who is in charge, whenever building collapses, people who are involved become faceless. You never hear that anybody was arrested; the only thing you hear is that government seizes the land, which for me is not enough. Government should go beyond the issue of the seizure of lands so that these people who are involved can be prosecuted.

What steps have your organization, the NIOB taken to put a stop to collapse building in the country?

The major step we have taken in this country is the issue of the National Building Code. The Nigerian Institute of Building is at the heart of the National Building Code because we know that with the building code, there will no longer be the issue of building collapse in this country. It is a major step of arresting the issue of building collapse in this country and put this industry in the right place so that we can now grow as a country. That is the major thing we have done, unfortunately as I speak to you, the National Assembly is still dilly-dallying.  They are dilly-dallying on the putting the enabling law in place because making it impossible to trace people for the building that collapsed. Once building code is there, it is not a law; it is just a specification like advice. The National Assembly should put a building code in place to put a stop to building collapse. It is to have punitive measures to be meted on people that are responsible for building collapse. If that is put in place, I see no reason why building should collapse; unfortunately, there is no building code in place.