Building collapse lawyers note that a continuing wave of costly and deadly collapses of major Nigerian buildings, some before they’re even completed, has Nigerians outraged at builders and officials alike for their failure to observe or enforce building safety standards.
Babatunde Liade, General Secretary of the National Union of Civil Engineering, Construction, Furniture, and Wood Workers has called on the Nigerian government to establish a Specifications Board to do what builders and officials should already be doing. As a voice of organized labor, Mr. Liade asks the government to form this Board to set standards, particularly materials standards, for all construction projects.
Mr. Liade blames the rash of building collapses and road failures in Nigeria to builders’ failure to use good materials of an accepted safety standard for construction jobs. He negates the role of contractor and engineer incompetence in these structural failures and lays the blame squarely on the use of substandard materials.
Mr. Liade blames greed and corruption for the tendency of Nigerian contractors and engineers to use substandard materials in their work. He says that they want to maximize their profits at the expense of their works. Our building collapse lawyers remark that apparently these builders don’t allow hundreds of fatalities and thousands of injuries to stand in the way of their profit goals.
.
Mr. Liade also accuses public officials charged with overseeing building safety with not doing their jobs. Mr. Liade contends that a Specifications Board would be able to fill the oversight role and do a proper job of overseeing safety and monitoring building firms.
It’s unclear to this writer though why the Specifications Board would be immune from the greed, corruption, and negligence that seems to plague the rest of the Nigerian building industry. Mr. Liade particularly accuses on-site engineers of failing in their duties. Yet the labor organization for which he is General Secretary includes these engineers.
Mr. Liade claims that the Specifications Board should be charged with:
All well and good if the Specifications Board can avoid the greed, corruption, and negligence that plagues the rest of the industry. Our building collapse lawyers hope that the Specifications Board doesn’t become just another entity to pay off on the way to reaping the profits from a Nigerian building contract.