How We Reduce Quacks Among Building Artisans In LAGOS

• Head, Building Artisans, OYEBAMJI DAUDA Explains

A few weeks back, the Lagos State Government through one of her agencies called LASBCA- Lagos State Building Control Agency held a one day stakeholders meeting with the private sector on the need to improve the Lagos State built sector and it yielded a positive result, as building artisans across the state stormed the venue in their large numbers.

In the course of the event, City People’s ISAAC ABIMBADE, (08155107955) spoke with Comrade Oyebamiji Taiye Dauda, who is the head of Building artisans in Lagos and he’s also the National President Bricklayers Association. He spoke to us about the challenges of building collapse in Lagos State. He advised the Lagos State Government on what they need to do more to address the menace of building collapse. He also talked about the quacks in the industry and how they can be identified, especially the quack building artisans in Lagos State. Below are excerpts of the conversation.

For the benefit of our readers and a few others who don’t know much about you, can you please introduce yourself?

My name is Comrade Oyebamiji Taiye Dauda, the head of Building Artisans in Lagos State. I’m also the National President Bricklayers Association, also the President Lagos State Bricklayers Association.

How do you feel each time you hear a story of a building collapse in Lagos?

Immediately there is a building collapse in Lagos, I always call their office and I will be there to help them and to rescue those who should be rescued.

During the Babatunde Fashola regime, the government carried all the artisans along. We participated in many activities of the government then. We also went through a lot of training and that also brought down the rate of building collapse.

Some of the building artisans now know better. We know more about building construction. We also have seminars with building materials from time to time. We have met with the Standard Organization of Nigeria (SON). These are some of the experts who enlighten us on the gauge and materials that should be used.

In addition, we are also working toward how to eradicate building collapse in Lagos State. When we hold meetings in our association, we tell ourselves the best way to mix cement. Because cement nowadays does not have the same capacity the way we used to know it in those days. Some of the materials we have today don’t possess the quality like those in the past.

Do you have your own task force that goes around to make sure the right things are done?

Yes, we have our own enforcement who always visit the site. But the major problem we have with enforcement is the bad people who oppose what we are doing but with the support of the Lagos State Government and the Lagos State Building Control Agency, they can function well. But everything has changed now, immediately we enter the site and we discover they are using inferior materials, we can now call with evidence and send it to the LASBCA office and other monitoring and supervision offices.

What are you doing to many of your members who parade themselves as engineers, or builder? Just one person can do the work of 5 artisans. What are you doing about this?

When we send our enforcement officials for a site visit. We ask people we meet there for their code. Before you can call yourself an engineer, you must have a yearly payment you must be paying and from that payment you are given a code for that particular year. You can claim to be an engineer without good proof and that’s why we have a standard arrangement with COREN. This body is working with building artisans to ensure things are done professionally.

And through all these collaborations we are getting more enlightenment. We can differentiate between black and white. We can identify the good engineers from the bad ones. And in most cases you hear people say, I am a site engineer, but what we need in a site is a builder. A builder knows better about the materials to be used. He’s capable of occupying the post of an engineer. He’s the person to determine who does this, and who does that. That’s why we are now calling LASBCA to work with us. I can assure you that in 3 years, you won’t hear of a building collapse in Lagos State. If the Lagos State government can follow the building artisans and carry us along with some of their policies.

How do you feel about the new body the Lagos State Government has just created called CAP?

I’m very happy about it. We have been writing them since about this that you should give us the power to work with you because you can’t get to some of these sites where people work. We know where some of these artisans work and we can help you fish out the bad ones among them because we work with many of them. We have many people without prior training who come to the site and call themselves all sorts of names.

Now we have formed a team: carpenters, plumbers, iron benders, electricians etc . So that when we go out, the right artisans are empowered to check what they are doing in the site. I’m very, very happy with this endorsement from the Lagos State Government.