Lagos- A Real Estate Consultant, Mr Jogun Onabanjo, on Wednesday urged both the Federal and state governments to enforce building codes to curtail building collapse in Nigeria..
Onabanjo told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos that given the recurring building disasters, government needed to be up and doing.
He said that some regulatory authorities in the building sub-sector were lagging in their duties of enforcing building codes.
NAN reports that Nigeria has had several cases of building collapse, the most recent being that of a six-storey building at the Synagogue Church of All Nations.
“If government does not want building collapse to happen in the next few years then, the regulatory authorities concerning the building of homes should be up and doing.
“What happens now is that nobody supervises, even when the builder says he has gone to the office.
“You just find out that by the time the building is built you see a lot of issues that should not be there, and nobody is saying anything.
“If the job is done rightly without any corrupt motive, there will be no building collapse in Nigeria.”
Onabanjo, who is also a property developer, criticised what he described as “a seeming lack of proper town planning in worship centres, markets, sewage, among others, in many development areas”.
“Everybody does what he likes; people build houses and the whole front is made of shops, no parking space, selling on the streets or drains.
“But these things must be fixed because these are the things that create slums in the environment.
“So once government can do this, the environment would be better, and there will be no case of building collapse. ‘’
He siad that the local government, being the closest to the people, should be saddled with the responsibility of enforcing monitoring construction sites.
“So I think the local government in Nigeria being the closest to the people, should ensure that the offices that are concerned with these regulatory approvals are really doing what they should be allowed to do. ‘’
The property agent also urged building professionals to insist on having their clients obtain appropriate permits before embarking on building projects. (NAN)
