COST IMPLICATION OF BUILDING COLLAPSE IN ABUJA NIGERIA

ABSTRACT

The incessant incident of building collapse in Nigeria is becoming another challenge to the government. The challengesseem it has no solutions because the government tried to create policies to solve the menacebut it seems the problem isincreasing. The recent collapse of a 21 – storey building in Lagos Nigeria indicated that all the policies of the government to stop the menace of building collapse are not working. The question on everyone lips now in Nigeria is how to stop this problem? Because of these, the paper aimed toexamine the cost implications of the building collapse on the national economy and to identify effective ways of solving the menace. In achieving this aim some selected incidents of building collapse were reviewed and the cost implications were estimated.Thiscost was presented in a tabular form also questionnaire was designed to examine from a professional view the solutions to the problem of building collapse in Nigeria and also to analyse the view of the professionals on the cost implications. The questionnaireswere analysed by the use of descriptive analysis (RII). The relative important indexwas ranked and the solutions that have the highest mean scores were ensuring that every building project has a mandatory soil test environmental impact analysis and structural analysis it was ranked first with a relative importance index of 0.09, Followed by Esurance of the SON (Standard Organization of Nigeria) that only certified building materials are allowed in the market this was 0.86 and Strict adherence to the provisions of the building code. Thepaper recommended that the government should ensure to have a monitoring group that will comprise professionals that have enough experience in building construction to ensure that the building is built by the specifications.

Keywords: Building, Challenges, Collapse. Cost. Solutions