Opinion
Building Collapse: One Too Many
The recent collapse of Saint Academy Secondary School building in Jos, Plateau State, which claimed the lives of 22 persons among whom were innocent pupils and their teachers, has again brought to the fore, the menace of continuous building collapses in Nigeria. Sadly, that same Friday, a three-storey building still under construction in the students’ hostel area of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University at Ifite Awka, Anambra State, also crashed. Yet, following closely on the next morning, a two-storey building collapsed at Phase two, Site Two of the Kubwa area of Abuja, a former Al-Hilal Hotel that recently got reconstructed into residential quarters. Building collapse is becoming a daily phenomenon in Nigeria. If you live in a high-rise building, beware!
According to preliminary reports, the Saint Academy School tragedy is a sad out-come of a former bungalow which got converted into a two-storey building. The tragedy came at the ten-year anniversary of an earlier one in the same city of Jos when in September 2014, Abu Naima Primary and Secondary School, Bukuru, in Jos North LGA, had collapsed killing 30 pupils. As jarring and condemnable, the reccurrence of building collapses become, the regrettable losses have not elicited appropriate actions that would make them avoidable. Rather, after every incident, stakeholders react in routine knee-jerk rescue efforts, count human and material losses, wail and pour outward expressions of sympathy for victims, while some officials harp on the need to maintain guidelines on building standards, or even issue some mere threats that amount to no tangible solutions.
Though the history of building collapses is as old as Nigeria, its propensity has jumped in the last ten years, involving especially new or on-going projects in Nigeria’s growimg mega cities, as developers in the face of poor building regulations try to reap inordinate profits from property boom. There has been virtually no one held culpable to deter perpetrators of unsafe building practices.On September 12, 2014, a six storey guest house within the Synagogue Church of All Nations at the Ikotun area of Lagos State, collapsed upon 300 victims leading to 116 deaths, among whom were 85 South Africans. The accident occurred despite forewarnings to church founder, Pastor TB Joshua, of observed structural defects. However, despite the Coroner’s Inquest inditing Pastor Joshua in the incident, he was never prosecuted.
On March 8, 2016 at Lekki, an on-going storey building being erected by the Lekki Worldwide Gardens collapsed killing 34 construction workers. This was despite allegations that Lagos State officials had issued a Stop Work Order on the construction site for contravening building approval terms. The developers were alleged to have recalcitrantly raised the building beyond the approved number of floors to the point of crashing. The crash on November 1, 2021, of another on-going construction of 21-storey Ikoyi Towers, which killed 44 persons, including the owner, Mr Femi Osibona, his personal assistant, Oyinye Enekwe and a US-based Nigerian business mogul and Managing Director of Foursquare Heights Ltd, Mr Wale Bob-Oseni, was also a consequence of adding more floors above the approved design levels. Disappointingly, these incidents and that at Banana Island, Lagos, of April 2023, ocurred despite projects being handled by supposed experts.
In recent times, Anambra State has been in the news more for building collapses than for anything else, though with lesser fatalities, but the crash on June 12, 2024, of an on-going five-storey Centenary Building in Onitsha, a building being erected by the Old Boys’ Association of Dennis Memorial Grammar School (DMGS) for its centenary anniversary, is worrisome given the calibre of professionals involved in the project. However, the collapse of Ochanja Market stalls in Onitsha, being constructed by Anambra State Government was the most disappointing of all, being handled by a regulator that should set the pace. Within weeks, another on-going construction of a two-storey market stalls collapsed on about 200 traders just last week, killing four at Eke Oyibo Market of Amawbia in the Awka metropolis, in close proximity of city planning officials.
Rivers state also is not left out in this ugly tally considering the sad crash of then on-going seven-storey building on November 23, 2018, at Woji Road, GRA Phase 2 of Port Harcourt, followed by the recent spike in on-going building collapses which include the February, 2023 crash of on-going two-storey building at Mbodo-Aluu, two separate callapses in June, 2023 of two-storey buildings at Okilton Drive and Ada-George areas of Port Harcourt, and the collapse weeks ago of a two-storey building at Okporo area of Rumuodara in Port Harcourt. While it is difficult to enumerate all incidents across the country, it is remarkable that the menace became worse within the last ten years. What may cause a building to collapse? Experts say, structural failures as a result of flaws in building design process, or improper project implementation, lead to collapse, but there is more to it from prevailing conditions in the country.
Though, present day developers use software tools to model building designs, the inability to interpret results with respect to erecting high rise buildings with currently available construction materials in the Nigerian market, raises questions of expertise. While many practitioners still resort to using structural formulation templates established from colonial days, when construction materials found in the Nigerian open markets were of standards specified in structural design handbooks, the use of prevailing poor materials for such designs creates vulnerability. Today, due to standards enforcement failures, the construction materials market is chaotic with regard to getting actual nominal dimensions of specific material quality, in view particularly of reinforcement rods.
For instance, what is nominally a 12mm rod in the market today, could range in real rod diameters from 10mm, 11mm to 11.5mm if one insists on taking actual measurements with a calliper, but a dealer would rate them small guage, medium gauge or full gauge 12mm rods, saying that size depends on manufacturer. But gauge should be gauge without intermediates because any reduction in diameter of rods leads to exponential reduction in cross-sectional area and shear strength. Also more unascertain is the alloy make-up which determines important metallurgical properties of rods, and one may seem out from the moon to ask a trader. The confusion cuts across all rod sizes, and buying materials has become an art in itself. For sawn woods, it is difficult to get any nominal dimension except one undertakes to saw customised dimensions, which is unusual. Also, some experts say current cement qualities are incomparable to former ones.
The consequence is that rebars configured according to specifications from handbook templates, but done with ‘Nigerian materials,’ may not bear the intended loads, or do so with very marginal factor of safety. In a country where budget has become a major decisive factor in construction, these considerations may be secondary in the absence of strict regulations even to ‘professional’ practitioners, let alone expecting some to employ qualified on-site supervisors. The solution to building collapses is that Nigeria should, no matter how difficult it is, revert to upholding general standards. The strict enforcement of the National Building Code of 2006 should be a good starting point. A regime in which concrete tests and certifications at every critical stage of construction are mandatorily required as pre-conditions for project continuation, should be strictly introduced, while the Standards Organisation of Nigeria should deploy materials test laboratories to certify and provide technical data of prevailing building materials to help operators make informed decisions.
Moreso, a situation where regulatory officials, city planners, supervisors and approval officers, allow themselves to be compromised should be discouraged by ensuring that prosecutions were conclusively pursued in every collapse to involve developers and culpable regulatory officials.
Joseph Nwankwor
Quote:”Communities have rights to peace, safety, and quality of life. Noise pollution, crowds, or other impacts from religious activities can affect these rights. Balancing these interests requires consideration and dialogue”.
“All work and no play”, its said, “makes Jack a dull boy.” Despite this age-long maxim that recognises the role of play in early childhood development, play appears to be eluding many Nigerian kids. The deprivation of play opportunities comes in different forms for the Nigerian child depending on family’s social setting or status, but the effect is much the same. For children in Nigerian poor families, life is becoming as much a hassle as it is for their struggling parents. Due to harsh economic conditions, many families resort to engaging their kids prematurely in trading activities especially in hawking, to help boost family revenues, when these kids should be enjoying leisure after school. Some of these children barely attend schools while being forced to spend much of their childhood hustling in the streets. For children from well-off families, time could be as crunchy as it is for their busy parents when, obsessed with setting agenda for the future of their kids, parents arrange stringent educational regiment too early for their kids.
These group of children are made to get-off the bed by 5.30am every weekday, get ready for private school buses that call at 6.00am, otherwise report by however means to school at 7.20am.The situation is worse for kids in the city of Lagos where the need to beat urban traffic rush-hours is very high. Most children are further subjected to extra hours of lessons after school at 2.00pm, only to be released with loads of homework. On many occasions children who leave home for school at 6.30am get back by 3.30pm. With hardly enough time to eat, do school assignments and take afternoon naps, these children hardly had time for plays before dinners. In Nigeria, kids of ages between 3 and 12 spend averages of 9 hours a day and 45 hours a week to and from schools, and additional hours doing home assignments and domestic jobs, whereas their peers in developed countries spend about half that duration and have more time for leisure.
Any remaining spare time left after school work or street hustle is further stolen, when kids who usually are fascinated by gadgets, are exposed to household electronics like phones, tablets and gaming consoles. Electronic games may create a sense of leisure, but the difference with human interactions is that kids doing games interface mostly with machines or with programme structured in ways that entrap a child’s pysch directionally, according to the game’s programming, in ways that may not encourage independent thinking. Moreso, attraction to such gadgets displaces kids’ attention from important television and radio programmes. The prevalent tight, academic schedules for some Nigerian kids, though intended for academic excellence, encroaches on childhood leisure time needed to achieve an all-round childhood development, and could make children to resent formal education altogether. Besides, academic excellence or economic pursuit, is not all there is to living a well-nurtured life.
Children’s leisure time, defined as time left over after sleeping, eating, personal hygiene and attending school or day-care, is very crucial to childhood development. Sociologists recommend that children should have at least 40 per ceny of the day as leisure. According to Berry Brazelton, a former pediatrician at Harvard Medical School, “Play is the most powerful way a child explores the world and learns about him or herself.” Unstructured play encourages independent thinking and allows the young to negotiate their relationships with their peers, and in the process build self-confidence and self-control. Play is one of the important ways in which young children gain essential knowledge and skills. Leisure time enhances learning as fun enables children to learn at their own level and pace. Young children naturally explore and learn many skills by making cognitive connections from events that catch their attention.
Unstructured plays help children developed their cognitive, physical and communication skills that make them acquire social qualities necessary in navigating relationships in adult life. Plays enable children assess how others feel and learn perspectives as well as empathy through observing differences in facial expressions, body language and even tone of voice, which helps them copy how to express themselves to others, and therefore develop socially acceptable behavours that build relationships. In cooperative activities, children willingly take things in turn and may delegate roles. Children can also share the glory of winnings through competitive games, which is all great for working together in task sharing. Aside encouraging parents to ensure adequate leisure time for their kids at home, schools should make plays and exercises an integral part of the educational curriculum. The educational curriculum set by the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) includes specific training durations and break periods, as well as sporting activities, as part of the school system.
Due to poor government funding, sports in public schools have declined, while most private schools lack sporting infrastructure or even play grounds. These make recreational activities and sports implementation almost impossible in schools. Also, the increasing rate of urbanisation in Nigerian communities is gradually eroding ancient playgrounds, while established urban centres have lost community playgrounds. With tightening apartment spaces now being the norm in most urban residential areas, many kids are forced to wriggle within burglary-proof enclosures. Nigerian governments and the relevant agencies should ensure that existing child labour protection laws, educational and urban development codes are implemented in the country, to enable proper nurturing of children as the future stakeholders of our society. Private schools, especially, should be supervised to ensure they follow the educational curriculum standards set by NERDC.
In a bid to impress parents and draw more patronage as better option than public schools, private schools, most of whom operate in cramped environments, have continued to set high regiments of training schedules beyond the capacity of most kids, and even encourage enrollment of pre-school age kids who can not sit still to listen for an extended periods of time. Schools, from creche to secondary levels, without playgrounds and recreational facilities should not be allowed to operate, and should be made to understand and implement appropriate curriculum and training durations. Many Nigerian kids, whether from rich or poor families, appear to have been set-up inadvertently, in the same leisure denial that affects their parents. All work and no play could lead to some messed-up kids who grow up not understanding social cues, and being unemotional and self-centered, manifest later as obsessive-compulsive adults.
By: Joseph Nwankwo
We thank God who is above all human contrivance and arrogance. Congratulations, Your Excellency Amaopusenibo Sir Siminalayi Joseph Fubara. Your victory takes us back to the Bible as a living document of a God that rules in the affairs of all His creation. In a manner of speaking, welcome back from your first war with Phillistines, Your Excellency! Yes, first example is David and Goliath! And like David, Your Excellency stands over Goliath in victory. But that is not enough. Our real enemy is that Your Excellency is Governor of a State with a wretched economy. Indigenes of Your State are today reduced to battalions of beggars waiting for who will hire their loyalty on the usual “pay-as-you-go” basis.
Your Excellency, it brings us to another Bible- based parallel. Conscientious Rivers indigenes above 50, should identify with and commit our all to this second parallel. It is to liberate the economy and people of Rivers people from 23 years enslavement and poverty, for us to regain our dignity and pride. When the economy of Egypt was drifting into a disaster zone, even Pharaoh did not know it. He also did not know what to do. But God sent a Joseph to build the economy into a fortress of good fortune that overcame the economic and social disaster Egypt did not know was ahead. Your Excellency for 23 years, Rivers State has been ruled without any logical, credible and consistent PLAN of how to overcome mass poverty from our dehydrated local economies.
Your Excellency, Rivers State cannot survive one month without Federal allocation! So called IGR only about 10 per cent of Federal allocation.It is also not based on what we produce but on tax from other people’s productivity that pass through our State. Pharaoh did not know what to do in the case of Egypt. May it please God to position another Joseph in Governor Siminalayi Joseph Fubara to heal Rivers State and build an economy that all Africa will come to access in order to chart a new course out of worsening economic hardship that is caused by near zero investment in productivity and endemic reckless looting. They are the twin chambers nursing a corporate cancer unfolding across Nigeria and Africa. The hard work begins today, Your Excellency.
We need an economic blueprint that will enrich every Rivers senatorial district from investment to grow productivity and to enrich every Rivers person from career-based productive labour, just as Pharaoh was enriched by Joseph’s economic Blueprint. Let Rivers State stop the trend of waiting the lives of young Rivers people recruited by Phillistines into cultism, thuggery and easy money, as a career. These Phillistines believe they have only lost one phase of many legal battles and battles by other means. But from comments in the public media, their eyes are fixed on 4-years of war and more! Your Excellency, we the people will not let you forget what you owe us. We have to make unbelievers see that your leadership is different and that we are uprooting the old order of an unproductive Feudal System. That system makes a few persons and their cronies to monopolise our collective wealth, while the majority are left in misery. Let’s put an end to enslavement by cabals and mass poverty in Rivers State. That is when the Phillistines will surrender.
By: Amaopusenibo Brown