A Facility Management Consultant in Nigeria, Engr Afolabi Adedeji, is worried about the increasing incidence of collapsed buildings in Nigeria with its attendant casualities and economic losses.
Adedeji told The Tide in Lagos that the infiltration of quackery greed and corruption into the building and construction industry has made human life to: cheap, and this has left bad name to the industry.
In an interview, Adedeji who is also an environmental expert said stakeholders in the engineering and construction sub-sector should rise to the challenge of saving the industry from the bad name that is causing core professionals of patronage.
The consultant, who called for sanity in the building/construction industry regretted that landlords, developers, corporate organizations as well as those who purchase building materials exploit the situation to cut costs to the detriment of safety and good construction practice.
He identified corruption and lack of maintenance as the twin evils affecting the good intention and efforts of successive administrations at meeting the housing needs of the people. He lashed site operators who sell construction materials like cement, sand, concrete, blocks and iron rods meant for reinforcement.
“They under reinforce the concrete and put inadequate quantity of cement in the blocks, thus making them 50 brittle that they break easily,” the consultant noting that the landlords or those who procure construction materials/services deviate from the approved plans submitted to the town planning authorities even as they add additional floors, rooms and neglect to put the desired columm, beams and other structural elements on appropriate place to guarantee the strength of the buildings.
He, however, charged construction companies in Nigeria to be proactive in issue of quackery in the industry to restore its lost glory.