8-STOREY BUILDING COLLAPSE IN IMO: WHAT WENT WRONG?

In the past five years, the construction industry in Nigeria continues to be plagued with collapse of high-rise buildings during construction. This worrying trend is becoming a huge burden to the nation and has prompted wide spread investigations by engineering bodies. In a 2019 report by Building Collapse Prevention Guild, Nigeria recorded 43 incidents of building collapse with Lagos topping the chart.

The recently collapsed 8-Storey building under construction along Musa Yar’Adua drive in Owerri Municipal Council Area of Imo State will certainly bring the engineering society to a stand still once again. A similar situation like the 7-storey building collapse in Port Harcourt. 

WHAT WENT WRONG?

There is no doubt that Nigeria has the technical and engineering knowhow to design and build high-rise structures. The engineering bodies within the nation are well developed with professionals who know their onions. However, the unethical practises among wealthy clients undertaking huge investment is causing the alarming rate of building collapse. It is not new that Nigeria has been struggling to sustain the oil dependent economy since 2015. These unprecedented challenges are forcing project owners to explore cost cutting strategies. 

THE FLAWS IN COST CUTTING STRATEGIES:

In small building projects, most clients approach a jack-of-all-trade to design a structure. I was in a client meeting when a junior architect brought designs for a high-rise building project. Clearly, he did not have the experience to be undertaking such projects. But, He had pitched himself to design, build and manage the project. He had executed various small building projects and done quite a few for the client. This was his claim to fame as a jack-of-all-trade for affordable building!

There is no doubt that clients love this type of people that save them loads of money that would have been spent on consulting the various professionals like – geotechnical (for ground investigation and foundation recommendation), structural (for static and dynamic loading of the structure), etc. These jack-of-all-trade people endear themselves to clients so much so that they are ever present at every sneeze. In Daniel Kahneman’s book – Thinking Fast and Slow, we are warned about these characters. The close relationship affects our ability to question their competency on a more challenging task like a high-rise building.

We automatically assume that because they have successfully handled numerous small building projects, they can also handle a high-rise structure. As usual, the jack-of-all-trade builder will design the structure and use a standard design software like CIVILSOFT for the structural design. Most building collapses are always concrete framed structures. Which are the most easiest to input into CIVILSOFT and get a complete structural analysis with drawings. It works like magic! Even a 10 year old can design with this software. 

However, the challenge always arise when the building is undergoing construction! All the software did was gabbage in, gabbage out! During construction, concrete behaves differently and the design parameters are not what is obtainable – the soil bearing capacity and other loading conditions are usually different. More so, the construction techniques are contributing factors that break the camels back!

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