NIOB seeks housing schemes’ implementation

Professionals in the built environment have advised authorities to sanction those found culpable in building collapse.The experts spoke to The Guardian on the heels of a recent incident in Jabi area of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), where two people were found died while no fewer than 18 persons including women and children were trapped under a four-storey building. 

Kenneth Nnabuife Nduka
Kenneth Nnabuife Nduka

It was reported that despite the abandonment of the structure for about 15 years, additional two floors were imposed on the building.In his reaction, President of the Nigerian Institute of Building (NIOB), Kenneth Nduka, lamented that the collapse is a show of prevailing disregard for professionalism, stressing that the developer and others involved on the project need to answer question and if found culpable, should be properly sanctioned. 

“We all must stand against the prevailing structured blight on professionals and professionalism. The prevailing compromise by professionals and developers must stop. This avoidable but deliberate assault on our national resources must stop; our people must be protected from avoidable careless death. The developers of the facility need be brought to book”.

Nduka said that all relevant professional bodies in the industry must wake up and demand immediate reconciliation of all urban and physical planning laws, in response to domestication of the National Building Code, which needs to be immediately enacted into law. He added that government at all levels should be reasonably held accountable for the menace of incessant building collapse.He expressed condolences to families affected in the obvious compromise by property developers, built environment professionals and regulatory agencies.

Similarly, the President of Building Collapse and Prevention Guilds (BCPG), Mr. Akinola George said necessary measures to enforce zero-tolerance in the built environment must be put in place.“Investigations are still ongoing on the causes of the collapse of the structure but immediate facts show that the building was abandoned for a long time. We stand for zero building collapse and whatever we have to do to make sure that collapses do not occur is welcomed”.

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[Nduka] tasked government to wake up to its onerous role of creating the right business environment that would stimulate entrepreneurship appetites, promote right investment models, and guarantee off takers’ sustained involvement in affordable housing.“I will like to challenge our minds with the prevailing reality that our population is surging most geometrically, global economic melt down is prancing and staring us in the face, the cost of living indices are daily rising thus constricting the supply of affordable housing and progressively escalating deepened homelessness. 

Our actions today will therefore determine whether our envisaged major and mega cities of the future will graduate into inclusive sanctuaries that embrace diversity, or a homogenous cities where only the most privileged can live”. According to him, recognising housing, as a human right will make it possible for the citizens to realise their potentials and for the society to thrive and prosper. 

“Like the minimum wage, affordable housing would therefore provide a floor, not a ceiling, for every citizen. People would still be able to strive for more, but every resident would have a place to strive from.We must therefore reject “affordable housing” proposals that are predicated solely on profitability indices and bourgeoisie class ego massaging by luxury developers and corporate donors”, he stated.