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NASS mulls legislative intervention to halt building collapse

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The leadership of National Assembly may soon consider legislative interventions to halt the ugly trend of building collapse in the country.

The Senate President, Dr. Ahmad Lawan, who advocated such intervention, also
sought more participation of Nigerian professionals in the design and execution of projects in order to ensure prudency, efficiency and effectiveness in the deployment of resources.

Lawan spoke midweek at the 2021 Architecture Annual Award and Fellowship Investiture of the Nigerian Institute of Architects held midweek in Abuja where he was a recipient of the Distinguished Service Award along the Governor of Taraba State, Architect Darius Ishaku while the Governor of Borno State, Professor Babagana Zulum was among the recipients of Honorary Fellow of the Institute.

The Senate President, while speaking on behalf of the awardees, stressed the need for the National Assembly to pay attention to the cases of building collapse being experienced particularly in major cities across the country.

“We must make it mandatory for certain procedures and processes to be respected and obeyed so that our building will not collapse easily.

“Probably we have been infiltrated by quacks. People who have no proper training in all these professions whether architeture or surveying or building and so on and yet they participate in the building processes.

“We want to see how we can stop such people from participating in the building and construction industry and this time around, we should be going for legislations so that appropriate incentives will be provided and appropriate penalties will also be provided for failures or infractions of the law,” Lawan said.

He, however, noted that despite the relevance of architects in making the environment a comfortable place, they were yet to be accorded their rightful place in the country.

He said: “I believe the architects have not been given their rightful place. In the National Assembly, from this time on, you have distinguished architects. And our starting point will be that we will look into possible legislations to actualise the dreams of Mr President of getting local contents considered very well in Nigeria.

“Certainly, Executive Order 5 which Mr President signed means a lot and that explains deeply the feelings of this administration, that our professionals here in Nigeria must be involved in everything that we do in this country as far as it is possible. We will insist on that.

“Incidentally, your President is a Permanent Secretary. So your first assignment will be, when you go to defend your budget before the Committee on Tertiary Institutions and TETFUND, you will come to us with a very clearly defined provisions on how Nigerian architects and other professionals will be included in participation in your projects.

“And we all know that Nigerian professionals are highly skilled, highly competent. They deserve to be involved not only in Nigerian environment but also in any other environment outside the country. We are proud of Nigerian professionals who have gone out to do so much but they have left here.”

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