BY ABEL KOLAWOLE & CHARITY UKAEGBU

Housing is a basic need. Several lives are lost annually in Nigeria through building collapse. A number of factors are responsible for building collapse.

According to the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), the factors include-inability to undertake soil tests before erecting a building, faulty building designs, mostly by non-professionals, wrong/dubious construction practices – most times leading to deliberate misapplication of building materials and other corrupt practices, lack of qualified supervisors or skilled artisans at building sites and use of substandard material, e.g. cement.

Towards eliminating the menace of building collapse, SON embarked on the standardization of the basic inputs in building and construction like iron and steel, roofing materials. Having completed standardization in other areas, the agency set out to review cement standard.   It adopted a holistic approach as to ensure that standards are maintained in all spheres of the building process.

Following widespread protests over rampant building collapse, the regulatory agency took the commendable step of immediate response to review cement standards in the country.   The technical committee of SON consulted widely with stakeholders from all sectors including the Nigeria Society of Engineers, COREN, universities, researchers, builders, block makers towards fashioning a suitable cement standard regime.

The stakeholders agreed to streamline cement types, with 42.5 cement for general purposes while 32.5 will now be restricted to plastering work. Some cement manufacturers kicked against the streaming saying it will lead to loss of jobs in the industry.   The primary concern of all stakeholders should be elimination of loss of lives from collapsed building.
SON’s effort at reviewing cement type standard is commendable as it will restore sanity to the system. It will yield the same result as the efforts of National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) did in sanitizing the Nigerian food and drug industry.   Standardization is required in all industries and sectors of the economy. Without appropriate standards, a country will be saturated with fake or substandard goods.

SON should be firm in ensuring that all cement manufacturing companies adhere to the new standard stipulated for the industry. The agency is expected to come out with a schedule specifying the period in which cement manufacturers are to retool or reconfigure their equipment to meet the new standard. Given the consequential loss of lives and properties whenever a structure gives way, the regulatory body should treat all cases of defiance or non-adherence to the new standard as economic sabotage with necessary sanctions handed to the offending organization.

As a strategy of ensuring strict adherence, the regulatory agency should have in place a series of stringent sanctions and rewards for operators in the industry. Producers meeting the standards are to be rewarded while those not meeting the standards are to be punished to deter others.
The desire by the House of Representatives to strengthen the regulatory activities of SON and eliminate building collapse informed the public hearing on composition and pigmentation of cement product.

Director General, SON, Joseph Odumodu at the hearing, identified reinforcement bars and cement in construction as two major culprits in building collapse.   He said, “In the last three years, we have established a reliable quality system for bars and so far we have not implicated this factor in any collapse in four years. SON cannot give the same assurance for cement. In carrying out our mandate, we sampled and tested cement products at factory and market levels as well as in mortar and concrete applications.”

Explaining why type 32.5 cement should be used in plastering alone, he said: “Statistically, there had been more collapses of buildings under construction than old aged ones in the last 10 years. If this frequency is juxtaposed in a milieu of preponderance of type 32.5 which accounted for over 90% of the cement in the last seven years, one can make reliable deductions on the need to proceed the way of restriction of type 32.5 cement.”

The restriction of 32.5 cement is appropriate as unscrupulous artisans will use the same application and mixing ratio for 42.5 when using 32.5 therefore endangering lives. Restricting 32.5 is in line with best global practice as progressive countries have stopped the production of that grade of cement. SON was only drawing from best global practice and should be given every support in the review of cement standard.

When Nigeria was dependent on cement import, SON stipulated 42.5 as the grade for import, building collapse was rare but became common when sufficiency was achieved in domestic production where 32.5 cement account for high proportion of the local production.

It is important to note that manufacturers of 32.5 grade cement have taken advantage of the high level of ignorance of consumers in Nigeria. The market prices of all types of cement have remained the same irrespective of the grade, in spite of the differential in cost of production.
The new directive from SON that 1/3 of cement bags will now have information on the grade, uses, date of manufacture among others will give buyers knowledge of the product they are buying is a good one. The public will no longer buy 32.5 cement at the price of 42.5.   But SON will need to increase their surveillance and spot checks to ensure that manufacturers do not bag 32.5 and label 42.5.

Instead of commendations, some cement manufacturers are at daggers drawn with SON over the new standards. They prefer the old regime where anything and everything goes in the construction industry. They disagreed with cement type differentiation.
However, the Coalition Against Building Collapse (CABCO) has risen in defence of the SON. In an  advertorial entitled:“Who is afraid of the new cement standard?”, CABCO said: “For years, Nigerians have wallowed in ignorance, thinking that ‘cement is cement’ and any cement could be used for any form of building project. It is not surprising that numerous construction failures have been recorded in Nigeria to which inappropriate application of cement grade may have contributed a lot.

“We are relieved that the SON has, in the interest of the general public, reviewed the cement standards in Nigeria in line with global trend. The new review, we understand, stipulates the various grades of cement and their applications.”

SON has done a noble job in gathering stakeholders and fashioning a new cement standard for Nigeria. The agency is also embarking on a rigorous citizen education and enlightenment campaign to inform the public of the various cement types and their uses. For SON, it is hoped that they will enforce and maintain the new standard. The agency deserves commendation for. And any manufacturer of cement whose priority is not to milk Nigerians dry of their hard earned money should embrace the  standard.