By Isaac Anumihe, Abuja
The Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) has vowed to sanction its members implicated in the collapse of a three-storey building located in Gwarinpa, in Abuja, FCT.
Making the vow when he briefed newsmen to mark the World’s Engineering Day in Abuja, at the weekend, the President of the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE), Tasiu Sa’ad Gidari-Wudil, said that NSE has activated its in-house Standing Committee on Failure Investigation and Analysis in order to lend efforts towards providing a more dispassionate, balanced and objective inquiry on the entire process of design, compliance enforcement, execution and approvals.
He maintained that if after the investigation and its members are implicated, appropriate sanctions would be meted out to such members.
While consoling the Federal Government and the families of the deceased and injured persons, he called on the government to invoke appropriate laws against anyone found culpable directly or indirectly.
“Only such strong measures will ensure that the yawning gaps of effective engineering practice regulation and bureaucratic incompetence in enforcing compliance are bridged, thereby preventing future deaths and injuries.
“It is the NSE’s well-considered view that henceforth, determined precedence should be set for deterrence and as part of the healing balm for victims of this disaster by fully implementing the reports of the investigations. To that effect, the government must invoke the appropriate laws against anyone found culpable directly or indirectly. Only such strong measures will ensure that the yawning gaps of effective engineering practice regulation and bureaucratic incompetence in enforcing compliance are bridged, thereby preventing future deaths and injuries” he said.
The society’s president recommended that henceforth, the criteria and approval process for buildings should be more rigorously observed and that any subsequent events such as this building collapse should be treated clinically and with the utmost severity.
However, NSE regretted that the government is violating Executive Order 5 which gave preference to indigenous engineers in the award and execution of contracts.
“Section 8 (1) named “Expatriate Quota” states that the Ministry of Interior shall ensure that Expatriate Quota for projects, contracts and programmes are granted in line with the provisions of the Immigration Act and other relevant laws, where qualifications and competence of Nigerian nationals are not available or cannot be ascertained, which shall be contingent on training such a number of persons as may be required for the execution of the contract or project”.
Unfortunately, he lamented, NSE checks have revealed that despite the abundance of databases for engineers, technologists and artisans in Nigeria, it was discovered that in many construction sites across the country, contracts were awarded to expatriates of equal qualifications, and some even without skills at all.
“We do not find this acceptable. Therefore, on Thursday, March 2, 2023, I led a delegation of some of our past presidents and executives on a visit to the Minister of Interior. We have drawn his attention to this anomaly and stressed the need for those sections of the Presidential Executive Order (PEO) 5 to be implemented to the latter. The minister has given us assurance on positive actions in that regard,” the NSE president said.