Bennett Oghifo Nigeria, sadly, is now being presented at conferences abroad as a sour example of where buildings collapse frequently in Africa. The President of the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN), Sadiq Abubakar, said recently that 22 buildings collapsed between January and July this year with 33 deaths. Professionals in the nation’s building sector believe these figures are conservative, particularly because the COREN data was released before the Jos school building collapse that killed 22 people.
Many more buildings have collapsed since then. How to end this incessant collapse of buildings? Professionals say there is no shortage of recommendations but that the government should muster the political will to implement them for a safer built environment. Preventing a building from collapsing during and after construction is no rocket science.
A team of experts should be in place to tick all the boxes, as is being done at the Eko Atlantic City, according to Ayoolanrewaju Kutebi, the Group Managing Director of GMH Luxury, a leading real estate developer, renowned for its focus on innovation and excellence. Kutebi, whose company is developing the Demaris Resort, on an island between the lagoon and the Atlantic Ocean, said there are immediate to long term solutions to the needless deaths and destruction. “In a short term.
What the government should do is to look at estates that have been so successful, as far as development is concerned, and I wil.