On Nigeria’s shores it is not surprising to hear that a building has collapsed in so or so town, because such disasters have been occurring frequently. The collapse often comes with fatalities. And, more often than not, the fatalities could be avoided or minimised with the use of the standard materials recommended by the experts.
But because of the need to make money easily and anyhow with little or no regard to the safety of the eventual users, owners use sub-standard materials for the buildings or use UNEDUCATED ‘civil engineers’ (local bricklayers), to design (if any were done) and build the structure for them. Sometimes it is the fault of the local bricklayers, who use overstretched materials for the work, whereas the owner had given sufficient stuff for the job. The buildings sometimes collapse while work is in progress.
It is called CORRUPTION, a disease that appears to affect all Nigerians, except those protected by God (Allah) because the appropriate punishment is never mated to whoever is found guilty of being responsible or complicit in the occurrence of the event.
Building collapses often happen in big cities like Abuja, Lagos, Kano, Port Harcourt, Ibadan, and many other metropolitans in Nigeria. But these occurrences are rarely heard of in developed countries
The likes of such structures and buildings in the civilised world as the Eiffel Tower in France, the Great Wall of China, the Louvre Museum in France, Buckingham Palace in Britain, the Blenheim Castle in Scotland, the Kremlin Palace in Russia and the White House in the United States (US), to name just a few, have been built over a century ago, but have remained standing today. They only undergo infrequent maintenance.
The only thing one often hears about buildings in the developed world is their deliberate fall through planned explosions to develop into modern or even futuristic buildings, which is often the case.
About four years ago, I was part of the entourage of a governor from the North West, who went to Lagos to emphasize with the Lagos state Governor, government and people over the fatal collapse of a building in which some lives were lost. The Governor went as a representative of his regional colleagues. The collapse made headlines in all the major media outlets in the country because it had happened in the highbrow area of the state capital.
But, let not the reader expect the write-up to detail all the past or even the immediate past occurrences of building collapse in Nigeria, apart from the one instance mentioned earlier. It is not its raison deter, but only to highlight the frequent but ugly and preventable occurrences in the country.
Although there are supervisors and building regulating authorities in the country, these things happen regularly because those entrusted by with such an important assignment do take the job lightly, as a result of some considerations that have nothing to do with the quality or safety of the lives of the eventual occupiers.
The incidents almost always occur with buildings that were either in use or intended for the eventual use of the masses, with their houses or places of business affected. But a visit to the homes and or business places (offices) of owners of the affected building would show a fitting structure built standardly by recognised construction companies, not the ‘civil engineers’ that they employ for the buildings used by the masses.
This is not also a surprising thing in Nigeria, because almost everyone appears to be in a hurry to become rich, stupendously so, regardless of how the ‘stupendous’ riches are made. There appears to be a kind of competition among the opportunistic few, to out-rich the next person, with no consideration of how the wealth is acquired.
There are so many cases of fraud, cases of ritual murders and cases of abuse of office in Nigeria to make even the most serious judiciary feel overstretched. These evils are blindly (deliberately) committed to get ‘lots of money’. Money that cannot be explained with a clean and clear conscience by the possessors.
Many of the possessors of the ill money do not seem to care, since such wealth gives them the ‘bragging rights’ in showing their ‘arrival’ into the circle of the ‘stinking rich’ in Nigeria.
May God make our minds and conscience clear of whatever we possess. May He also make us the earners of whatever He makes halal, all the time.
Malam Malumfashi wrote from Abuja.
