NIA Urges FG to Mandate Architects To Supervise Designs

In a bid to check the menace of building collapse, the Nigerian Institute of Architects (NIA) has called on the Federal Government to mandate architects to supervise the implementation of their designs.

The NIA President, Enyi Ben-Eboh, who made the call while speaking in Abuja at the institute’s 2022 Strategic Retreat, stressed that it has been discovered that architects hardly supervised the implementation of their designs in the various cases of building collapse recorded across the country.

Ben-Eboh explained that checks on a lot of these building collapse cases shows that their members are really not involved, adding that a lot of clients, once they get an architect to design a building and to get approval just go ahead and build according to their own dictates.

According to him, most times they do not have architects on these jobs and appealed to the government that it should be mandatory that architects do not just end their jobs with the drawings.

“They should also be able to supervise the implementation of what they designed. Because oftentimes an architect could design a building on two floors and during construction, a client says he wants to add two more floors,” he said.

Ben-Eboh, pointed out that no report had indicted the institute on any case of building collapse, adding that a lot of building owners engaged in direct labour and use people who were not registered.

In his words: “That you went to school to study Architecture doesn’t make you a qualified architect. Rather it is until you have fulfilled the conditions for licensing and certified by the Architects Registration Council of Nigeria, then you can be called an architect and can be responsible for whatever you design.”

Speaking on the retreat, the NIA president hinted that it would help address the issue of building collapse and ensure adequate synergy with the government to nip the menace in the bud.

Ben-Eboh stated that it is a source of concern to the institute; hence part of what will be discussed at the retreat will be how best to confront the issues because it is not that there are no laws to govern this but the implementation of these laws has been the problem.

“So as an institute we will think how to restrategise in the retreat to find out what we can do to assist the government organs that discharge the responsibility of giving approval for these buildings,” the NIA president added.