The Lagos State Building Control Agency (LASBCA) has issued a warning to building professionals in the state against assuming roles outside their areas of expertise. This warning was given by the General Manager of LASBCA, Gbaye Florence, at a conference organised by the Building Collapse Prevention Guild, Amuwo-Odofin Cell, in Satellite Town, Lagos. The conference was themed “Building Resilient Lagos through Synergy” and was held in response to the collapse of a four-storey building on Ladipo Street, Satellite Town, in June, which resulted in several fatalities.
According to Gbaye Florence, the building industry cannot achieve safer construction when professionals abandon their defined responsibilities and attempt to perform functions requiring different areas of expertise. She used the analogy of a surgical procedure, where different specialists perform distinct roles towards a common outcome, to emphasize the importance of professionals sticking to their areas of expertise. Gbaye stressed that an architect, for instance, should not assume the functions of a geotechnical or structural engineer, surveyor, or regulator simply because those functions are connected to the same project.
Gbaye Florence also emphasized the need for collaboration among professionals in the building environment, including architects, structural engineers, mechanical engineers, electrical consultants, and town planners. She noted that the government cannot do it alone and that professionals in the building industry also have a crucial role to play in ensuring safer construction. Gbaye added that if professionals continue to work in isolation, Lagos will not have a resilient and safer environment.
The General Manager of LASBCA also called on institutional bodies, community leaders, and other stakeholders to alert the government to distressed buildings in their areas so that action can be taken before lives are endangered. This, she believes, is a collective responsibility that requires the active participation of all stakeholders. By working together, Gbaye believes that Lagos can be made safer and more resilient.
The coordinator of the conference, Chibuike Okafor, noted that the June collapse in Satellite Town had exposed the need for communities to take a more active role in building safety. He emphasized that the government alone cannot do it all and that communities have a crucial role to play in protecting lives and improving the safety of communities. Okafor believes that collective action is necessary to prevent building collapses and ensure safer construction.
The chairman of the occasion, Austin Otuoke, also described the frequency of building collapses in Lagos as a call for collective responsibility among practitioners and other stakeholders. He stressed that Lagos must develop safely and that no government can make the state resilient alone; the answer lies in partnership. Otuoke emphasized that all stakeholders must work together to develop a city that can be bequeathed to the next generation.
The conference was a call to action for all stakeholders in the building industry to work together to ensure safer construction and prevent building collapses. The Building Collapse Prevention Guild, Amuwo-Odofin Cell, and LASBCA are taking steps to promote collective responsibility and synergy in the building industry. By working together, the goal is to make Lagos a safer and more resilient city.
Key points
- LASBCA warns building professionals against role overlap to ensure safer construction.
- Collective responsibility is necessary to prevent building collapses and ensure safer construction.
- Professionals must stick to their areas of expertise to achieve safer construction.
