By Tom Moses
UYO—A renowned Structural Engineer and University of Uyo, UNIUYO, don, Professor Charles Uko, has suggested the adoption of  sanctions against contractors who handled collapsed structures in the country.

Presenting the 41st Inaugural Lecture of the University of Uyo entitled: Bridges Over Troubled Waters yesterday, Professor Uko suggested that the recommendations of Hamurabi, the 18th Century King of Babylon be applied in Nigeria to compel contractors to comply with safety rules when undertaking construction works  including bridges and buildings.

He said: “A builder who builds a house for someone and does not construct it properly and the house which he built collapses and kills its owner, that builder should be made to face commensurate sanction, so as to commit contractors to the principles of structural engineering.

“If a builder builds a house for someone, even though he has not yet completed it; if then, the walls collapse, the builder must make the walls solid from his own means.

“If it ruins goods, he shall make compensation for all that has been ruined and in as much as he did not construct properly this house which he built and it fell, he shall re-erect from his own means,” he stated.

Professor Uko who is the Vice-Chancellor-Administration of UNIUYO attributed the incessant cases of collapsed structures in the country to flood and foundation movement, defective permanent materials or workmanship, overload and inadequate or unsuitable temporary works or erection procedures as well as inadequate design in permanent materials.

He  advised contractors to always adhere to the methods and principles of structural construction. He also urged government at all levels to consider giving serious

structural engineering projects to Nigerian Engineers for the country to benefit from the massive infrastructural investments being anticipated in the coming years just as local content policy should be extended to the construction industry.