By Cosmas Omegoh
Imagine you are on a visit to a highrise luxury apartment still under construction in an upscale area of the city. You labour up to the 10th storey. You are right at the balcony of the 10th floor standing. You simply feel this cool, gentle breeze swirling all around you in a welcome gesture – just like a majestic queen will do with all her alluring beauty and blessedness. Then looking in a distance – as far as the eyes can see – the sight of an enthralling city spread out in its splendor beckons, appearing like a world away from the real world itself.
Then within that enchanting magic moment and its accompanying ecstasy, you faintly hear what seems to sound like a cracking sound. You reason something somewhere has snapped and you are dead right. Then, just as you are trying to figure out what the sound means, the unimaginable begins to happen too fast, and too quickly. You are hauled into a dizzying frenzy and that is all you can remember as the world goes to a screeching halt. 
Precisely, pillars and columns begin to give way – all coming down simultaneously. Piles of concrete come crashing heavily on one another savagely. A fatal fall follows. Flung down by such a strong sweeping force unthinkable to resist, you pass out. All within seconds, the border line between life and death thins out. Help is far away – or disappears.
Now, the picture represents the unspeakable fate of many who either die or get trapped in the rubble of collapsed buildings. Such incident is becoming rampant nowadays in the country. The frequency figure is becoming frightening, leaving everyone concerned worried.
Probably no one has hurriedly forgotten the deadly collapse of the 21-storey building under construction on Gerard Road, Ikoyi, Lagos, on November 1, 2021. Humongous human and material losses were recorded in the disaster. Everything went down irretrievably into a pit of waste. At the last count, over 45 persons were recorded dead – workers, visitors and even the developer of the high-earn property, Femi Osibona, and some of his aides and associates.
Expert worried about building experts
The Ikoyi-building collapse, many insist, is another national tragedy of a huge proportion. Since the disaster occurred, those who felt it like a personal loss have been in mourning.
Experts too have been voicing their concerns. They don’t want a repeat of the disaster, and so they have been proffering professional solutions to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
“All registered builders and the entire building profession are not pleased with this growing culture of buildings collapsing,” Mr Peter Omale, chairman, Nigerian Institute of Builders (NIOB) Abuja chapter, lamented, adding that “we are sorely worried about this unavoidable incident that keeps recurring. It is such a serious cause for concern.
“Since the Lagos incident happened, I have always reflected on the disaster.
“My take is that it was avoidable because what we experience here usually are not natural disasters. Rather they are man-made; that is why we should be disturbed they happen.”
Adibe Njoku, an architect, also admitted that “truly speaking, what is happening now is a big source of worry to all of us.”
How building should progress
“I will not go on to finish a building without involving a engineer.
“Now, look at the right way every serious building project should go. The first person to go on the site is the land surveyor. He will tell me the way the land is. He will give me the contour to know how the land is even if I don’t visit the place. Even when I do, I will still involve him. He is the one to follow the land meter by meter. When he gives me what he has, I will then start my drawing.
“Next, the structural engineer kicks in – whether we are doing a three storey, or a 100-storey building.
“Next we ask. ‘How is the soil?’ Here, we involve a geo-technical engineer who will now take the soil sample and tell us what he sees. The land you are seeing, six meters below could be all clay. Armed with all that, we start our design.
“Going forward, we check what will make that building to stand: the weight, the amount of concrete up to that level. We ask ‘is the soil able to bear the weight?’ That is why we go to the soil engineer to check the soil-bearing capacity. A lot of calculations go into that. You must ensure that what is put there will sustain the weight of the building. All that done, the professionals begin to put their seals on the project.
“From there, we go to the approval level where the regulators will tell us to start,” Njoku explained.
How developers cause building collapse
Njoku is sad that even when a professional has taken all the necessary precautions, a “developer might choose to do things the other way. That is why we insist on supervision. But no professional will force himself on the developer.”
He is further saddened that the building industry is in a bigger trouble now because “some people come up to say we are developers – all because they have the money. Often they ask: ‘Why using these consultants who only come to take money away? Don’t mind them.’ They will just call a young lad who left school yesterday and say come do this design for me. And he will be happy he has a job.
“Having given him the job, the developer begins to instruct the person who is supposed to instruct him. He insists, ‘my friend do this job for me this way.’
‘“I’m a developer; I brought my money, I employed you.’ This is where our problem is coming from.
“Sadly the young man he brought has very little experience. He has not worked under a professional for two years and probably does not have a licence yet to practise architecture.
“And so, what we have at hand now is a situation where people are undertaking what is too big for them.”
Njoku maintained that as a safety measure, “even when we design a structure, we have to be there because along the line, what the geo-technical man told you might not totally be what is on the ground below. It happens. Because you are on the site, you quickly make amends.”
According to him, “the essence of supervision is for you to be on the ground – because anybody can mix anything and pour it down for you. He wants to finish in time, so he might do anything if you are not careful.
“That is the essence of having a project sign board indicating who is doing what. Everybody whose name is on the board should have a name to protect – they should be people who are known in the industry.”
Lending credence to the prevalence of sharp practices in the building industry, Dr Kehinde B. Osifala, President, Nigerian Institute of Structural Engineers (NIStructE) in a statement noted that preliminary findings on the Ikoyi building collapse indicated that it “was initially designed for just six floors, and later to 12 floors, before this was further changed to 15 floors.
“It could not yet be established the adequacy of any properly designed and documented further revision to the eventual (and tragically, final) 21 floors that was being implemented and which collapsed.”
Omale equally faulted certain engineering procedure on the building site, saying “ideally, there is suppose to be a sign board having the addresses of every firm working on the project: their emails, and telephone numbers and all that. Were all that there?”he queried
Other factors that cause building collapse
For Omale, “in some other climes, when buildings collapse, it is mostly associated with natural disasters. But in our own case it is different.
“We cannot actually attribute a particular cause to such disasters in the country. A whole lot of issues come to play. At times, it could be as a result of design, workmanship, material composition or how the materials were coupled and installed.”
Similarly, Dr. Osifala, noted that when a building collapses, with particular reference to the Ikoyi disaster,“a structural engineering disaster is certainly not in doubt. However, events of this nature and structural engineering problems in general, require careful and painstaking analysis and assessment of all the evidence and information relating to the collapsed building and the site, including the resulting debris, eye-witness accounts, and all other available details before arriving at a definitive statement.”
He is confident that ordinarily, “structures once well designed and implemented with the use of the appropriate professionals should remain safe throughout their service life.”
Losses that follow building collapse
According to Njoku, once a building goes down, primarily human lives are lost, “nothing compares to that.”
He added thus humorously: “I watched a video where the owner of a fallen building hired a furniture maker as his architect and insisted he was one of the best in the world.
“In that case, the professionals lose integrity based on what is not their making.”
Here, Omale’s submission is that “the value chain of building collapse is enormous.”
He too affirmed that “however, the biggest loss is human life which is irreplaceable. Even those who survive might be maimed for life.
“Other losses even when they can be replaced, come with a cost in the sense that the components put together have been lost. It is such a huge economic loss. What that means is that with particular reference to the Ikoyi disaster, people invested in that project and it went down.
“The rubble being evacuated are in themselves a huge economic loss.
“Yet, there is an environmental factor. We all saw the video and photos of the building as it went down. We saw the kind of dust particles that were raised as a result of the fall. Now, the lighter particles, depending on the wind direction at that particular time, can travel as far as to 70kms from the point of collapse. Recall that the particles have chemical components in them; eventually they will be inhaled by people; such is not healthy. So, it is unhealthy to have all that in the atmosphere.
“Again, look at the surrounding building –the ensuing vibration can cause other surrounding buildings to collapse, depending on the soil. So buildings not too far away can experience shock which will compromise their integrity.
“If the Ikoyi building did not collapse, today, people would have been there working. But now nobody is there working. Even the woman selling food around the area is out of business. She can no longer earn money because that sight is closed down.
“If the site is tied to a merchant or a producer of some materials, those businesses are cut off immediately. That is how it works.
“Assuming the building owner had deposited money with a firm to produce doors and windows and the rest, and the firm has manufactured the items according to the design, who is he going to sell them to?”
The govt regulators’ role
Omale insisted that in some sense, when a building goes down, the government regulators are complicit.
Hear him: “Now, if the regulatory body is alive to its duty, it operatives will ask (particularly the Ikoyi building) who is the developer? Who is the structural engineer? Who is the quantity surveyor? If these questions were not answered, then, it was a sign that a disaster alarm bell was ringing.
“If people from the regulatory agencies probably overlook what they should have taken a critical look at, disaster knocks at the door.
“And so, when we look at the human resource aspect, we find out that sometimes, many things are left undone. And when we neglect these things, we might end up reaping disaster.”
While expressing similar sentiment, Njoku said that his worry was about the caliber of personnel at various building regulatory agencies in the country.
“When you get there, it will surprise you to note that the man you meet is a draughtsman. His job is to stamp ‘Approved.’ That is why we insist that the right professionals should be at the various approval agencies. They will go through the calculations made before giving approval. But in some cases, people who do not have the requisite qualification, are in reality the ones giving approval,” he pointed out.
Absence of insurance cover too
Now, here is a factor so often neglected which Omale insisted is very vital in securing the integrity of buildings.
He said: “One thing we need to begin to do regularly is to ensure that buildings under construction have insurance covers.
“Of course, no insurance company would like to put its money or be associated with a project it knows will fail.
“Every insurance company will look at the risk associated with what it intends to cover. If it knows that the required things are not being done, it will not go in. So, for buildings under construction, there is a need for insurance covers.
“No insurance firm would like to give a cover to a project it knows that the required professionals are not involved. Of course, it will check to see that you have a registered builder. You have a structural consultant, the architectural input and all the professional input are there, down to healthy and safety practices that would be adhered to during the building construction. The builder would have to ensure that all the healthy and safety documents, and quality management plans are available. Then the insurer will ensure that the programme of work, the construction methodology, designed by a registered builder is there, signed and sealed by requisite professionals. It is then that any insurer can look at it and put its seal on it. That way, the market value of the property will increase, because everybody now knows that the property will not fall.”
Role of substandard materials
According to Omale, substandard materials which have flooded the market are not helping to safeguard building integrity across the country. He lamented that “majority of the steel we have now don’t meet the required diameters,” pointing out that: iron 16mm in the market now is most likely going to be 14mm. Iron 12mm is most likely going to be 10.5mm or 11mm.
“Now, if you have somebody on the site, who is not well grounded and experienced, and he starts using those materials assuming they have the required strength, you might be in trouble.
“This issues fall under the purvey of another regulatory authority, the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON). What are they doing about it?”
Njoku corroborated his view, noting that “sometimes when you go to the market to buy steel, the dealers will ask you ‘are using it for contract or to build your own house?’ If you say your own house, they will give you 16mm rod. If you say government contract, they will give you 14.5mm rod. Both are not the same thing.
“So, when the engineer says use 4y16, that is what this column should use internally, and you use 4y14.5mm, it will not give you the same strength. But if you must use it, you must increase the number of rods in the column to get the strength you want.”
Going forward
Njoku insisted that for buildings to cease falling, “we need to call a spade a spade,” adding that “no matter how much I love my wife, will I go ahead to perform an operation on her? No. So let people use the correct professionals when they want to build their houses.”
Then, he asked: “Look at the Cocoa House in Ibadan built many decades ago. Is it not standing till now?
“Let bricklayers stop answering engineers on site. They are the ones who tell the developers ‘don’t mind those engineers. ”
Omale equally urged Nigerians “to build right and build well,” and use the right professional for their project.”
He further urged Nigerians to “always engage registered builders if you are to go into any construction endeavour. Don’t cut corners,” warning that “the repercussion is always deadly.
“People should know that it is not enough to pick somebody from nowhere and ask the fellow to be a project manager. A registered builder should take such responsibility. The architect should be there, the same for the service engineers.
“When a developer has a team of professionals, working on a project, building collapse will not happen.”
He went on to point everyone to the essence of ensuring that a national building code is put in place.
“It has been an issue every professional in the building environment has been clamouring for, that it should be given that force of law because right now, when a building collapses, a panel will do its investigations, come up with recommendation, but eventually, there is no penalty.
“But if the national building code – which is being revised – is given the force of law by the National Assembly, it means, every state will domesticate it through their urban development agencies, and make it an extant law for themselves. That will make it a lot easier to give sanctions where and when the need arises,” he said.