Kingsley U N Chikwendu —
The Director General of the Nigerian Building and Road Research Institute (NBRRI), Prof. Engr. Samson Duna has acknowledge the importance of movable houses which he said NBRRI has embraced and ‘has come to stay’. Duna also praised the cost effectiveness of the technology which he described as friendly and comes with the luxury of renting a plot and erect a movable house on it.
“Movable houses is a technology that NBRRI has embraced and has come to stay, Duna said.
“We have developed in that technology and it is friendly, the cost is even friendly. You can rent a plot of land, erect the movable house and use it. Then, if the person (leaser) feels your cost of rent has expired, you can move your movable house and rent another place.
Prof. Duna also identified the issue of commercialization as a problem to the growth and usage of a movable house.
“The issue of commercialization is the problem. In Nigeria, one area that research institutes are finding difficult is the area of selling, commercializing and invention. People are so used to restricting themselves to old tradition, it is not easy to adopt a new one.
“An inventor looks at the money he puts in, he wants quick return of his money and research is not like this”.
The NBRRI boss revealed this recently in an interview with Viewpoint Housing Media on issues concerning the rising cases of building collapse in the country. He said the lack of adherence to procedural steps when it comes to construction of buildings is the chief cause of the many building collapses the country is witnessing lately.
“Look at the level of infrastructure in the country and if you access the infrastructure from design to construction, to usage, safety, maintenance and the overall lifespan on how the structure is looked into, you will discover that it is scored low, Duna explained.
“From designing, if you are talking about the design stage, did the structure failed? Because some structures fail at (the) design (stage).
“Then, we say when the structure was designed, did it meet the lifespan of the structure? Maybe, every infrastructure has a lifespan. For the fact that a structure has a lifespan, that does not mean that after the lifespan it has failed, no. It is expected to function properly before adequate maintenance can come in.
He further added that for the way forward in getting solutions to the problem of building collapse, NBRRI which said is only empowered to conduct research on buildings, needs the backing of the law to function properly.
“The way forward for the building industry is very bright. NBRRI as a research institute has been able to import quite a lot of equipment to help us carry our research every well but, another thing is we need enlightenment of the law”
“NBRRI needs the backing of the law to ensure that it functions properly”.
He also identified the lack of control of prices in the market.
“We need a way of controlling the price of things in the market. Everybody is making things to go up and the government is trying, especially the National Assembly. They are trying to control the cause of wreckage of buildings in Abuja and Lagos but, what they fail to do is they refuse to control the price of construction materials”.
