The Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) said the organisation is collaborating with the International Standard Organisation (ISO) in developing standards 700 – one of IS0 highest standards in all areas of infrastructure – in a bid to upgrade Nigeria’s urbanisation standards.
Speaking in Abuja, at the World Standard Day Symposium, the Director General of SON, Anthony Osita Aboloma said, “When we do that, our cities will be smarter and things will work. It is something we are doing with all other country in the world and it will be a welcome development in Nigeria to improve the standard of the city through quality infrastructure.”
He explained that usually the World Standard Day is celebrated every 14th of October every year. The theme for the 2017 edition is “Standard makes cities smarter”.
Aboloma said with the rural to urban migration happening all over the world, “from statistic, we are aware that average of 20,000 people move into the city every year. For us to be able to cope with the problems of urbanisation which is a challenge, we have to make our cities smarter, more efficient to accommodate the people that are coming into the city.
“The beauty of smart cities is that you don’t have to start the city from the scratch, an old city can be made smart by improving on the structures, the sewage system and energy saving mechanism like deploying smart metals to every building in Nigerian city.
“Some of this technology are not new to us, we already have them, all we need to do in Nigeria is to accelerate innovation in this regard to make our cities smarter”. He added that the country has a huge challenge of infrastructure and human capital deficiency.
“that is why we are deploying standards to actively solve this challenge of poor city management, poor electricity and poor road traffic”. He said “we will deploy technology to manage the traffic, the electricity and to generally discharge the core mandate of SON which is improving lives through standards” Aboloma noted.
In her remarks, the Minister of State for Industry, Trade and investment, Aisha Abubakar charged the Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) to do more in preventing the use of substandard materials in building construction in Nigeria.
Abubakar noted that, “The concerns of building collapses, fire disasters, flooding, improper waste management and the like would be adequately dealt with if the various professional groups and associations, working with the Standards Organisation of Nigeria and other regulators in standards issues close ranks to optimise the application of international standards in our daily lives.”
She said the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment will continue to support the active participation of Nigeria in international standardisation programmes being coordinated by the Standards Organisation of Nigeria to ensure that our Nation continues to gain optimal benefits there from.
