Building Failure Causes in Nigeria and Mitigating Roles by Engineering Regulation and Monitoring

Abstract

This paper assessed some of the reported cases of building failures and their possible causes in Nigeria between 1977 and 2011. The reported major failure causes are structural failure (SF), Carelessness (CLSS), poor workmanship (PW), poor supervision (PS), poor materials (PM), and quackery (Q).These causes of failure were subjected to Chi-Square statistical test at 5% significant level and 4 degree of freedom to know the most common cause of failure in Nigeria. The analysis showed quackery as the principal culprit in the reported building failures in Nigeria with prevalence of 8 over poor supervision being the minimum in occurrence. Structural failure occurred 5 times, while poor materials, carelessness and poor workmanship occurred 4, 2 and 2 respectively. The Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) with Engineering Regulation and Monitoring (ERM) as her arm as a technical professional group discouraging quackery and failures generally in Engineering Practice. The holistic approach needs effective training of Engineers starting with strong mathematical and scientific background at the secondary and tertiary education levels in conjunction with rigorous field and Industrial training exercises. There after effective scrutiny, professional registration process of competent engineers is followed.