On an incremental basis, building collapse is becoming a permanent feature of the built environment in Nigeria, particularly in Lagos, where the quest for fast and easy buck drives most enterprises, including housing.
Lagos as a small-sized city in terms of land mass, which is just 0.4 percent of Nigeria’s total land mass, has a large population, said to be over 20 million, and also a fast-paced urbanization, both of which fuel high demand for housing.
Estate developers latch onto this high demand to build houses for sale and for rent. Some of them, who lack integrity and conscience, see this as an opportunity to make more money, and by so doing, they sidestep rules and build just anything.
Studies have shown that building just anything is generally driven by greed, and when this greed is given flight by weak regulation or regulatory lapses, it leads to construction failures that have made the building environment in the country unsafe not only for living, but also for investment.
According to Morgan Housel, author of ‘Origin of Greed and Fear,’ greed begins with the most innocent idea that “you deserve to be right.” In Nigeria, this class of developers lives out the saying that “greed and fear control everything in investing and seem to epitomise experts’ view that ‘there is no amount of growth that cannot be destroyed by an investor’s temptation to grab too much of it.”
After the collapse of a 21-storey building on Gerard Road, Ikoyi, Lagos on November 1, 2021, close housing market watchers in Nigeria thought that Lagos in particular and Nigeria at large had seen the last of such incidents, given the magnitude of lives and investment losses.
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This was an avoidable tragedy which unfortunately claimed the life of the Developer, Femi Osibona, along with those of over 50 other persons, mainly hapless construction workers.
Osibona’s greed and regulatory lapses, which Lagos State governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, affirmed and apologized for, were the causes of that heavy human casualty and loss of people’s investment.
Pushed by greed and Huusel’s theory of ‘you deserve to be right’, Osibona circumvented the approval he got to build a 15-floor tower and raised it to 21 floors with little or no structural changes in the originally approved building plan.
The recent collapse of a three-storey building in Ojodu-Berger area of Lagos followed the same pattern. The building, which housed Equal Right Restaurant, collapsed while undergoing additional construction to convert it into a four-storey structure.
That ‘investor’s temptation to grab too much of it’ led to the death of five people, loss of people’s homes, the end of the investment in the restaurant, and loss of jobs by those who worked there.
The time is now for Nigerian authorities and those of Lagos in particular to end this waste.
Olabisi Demola-Alade, former chairman of the Lagos State branch of the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV) recalled that between 2011 and 2019, over 84 buildings collapsed across Nigeria, and only 21 out of that number occurred outside Lagos. By now, the figure must be a lot more.
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Though Tayo Odunsi, chairman, Northcourt Real Estate, does not see these incidents affecting both supply and demand for housing, especially luxury apartments in high-rise buildings, they lead to significant increase in construction risk financing and loss of investment.
He explains that financiers are going to be a lot more cautious and will be asking a lot of questions on developers’ antecedents before committing funds to a project, adding that buyers will be making demands from the developers on issues bordering on regulatory compliance and the kind of project partners they have assembled.
To avert further loss of lives and investments, experts suggest that professional bodies like the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN), the Nigerian Institute of Civil Engineers (NICE), and the Real Estate Developers Association of Nigeria (REDAN) should sanction members who cut corners and compromise standards.
They should also monitor the activities of their members from time to time, hoping that this will serve as a deterrent to unwholesome practices. There is also a need to create public awareness about the importance of engaging registered professionals in building.
