The International Facility Management Association, IFMA, has attributed the high level of infrastructural decay in Nigeria to tlack of budgetary provision for the maintenance of the existing infrastructure. The Programme Director of IFMA, Abuja Chapter, Mr. Collins Osayamwen who disclosed this Abuja at the 2015 World Facility Management Day, regretted that Nigeria does not give priority to maintenance related issues.

Nigeria’s infrastructures

The theme of this year’s World Facility Management day was ‘Building Resilience for The Future’. Osayamwen noted that the only kind of maintenance Nigeria understands is breakdown maintenance, which he said is due to lack of proper planning and budgetary provisions.

“I tend to a little bit disagree that Nigerians lack a maintenance culture, the reasons why we are unable to maintain our infrastructure, not even from government alone but even private is because from the word go, we get it all wrong.

The kind of maintenance we know in Nigeria is breakdown maintenance, until it fails you don’t care whether it needs service or not, “ he said.

He pointed out that the inability of the engineers, builders and architects who build to work together with facility managers who maintain the facilities, have contributed immensely to infrastructural decay in the country.

“Unfortunately we don’t have any budgetary provision to ensure that these facilities are managed and maintained. What we now do is to run from pillar to post when we have a crisis in our hands. Until we are able to give it its rightful place, we will continue to see this level of decay in our infrastructure,” he said.

He lamented that though facility management is yet to be recognised as a profession, he said the organisation is making efforts to ensure that the body is recognised by the law. In his remarks, a former President of IFMA, Senator, Ahmad Abubakar said he would make sure National Assembly works out a bill that would legalise facility management.

Senator Abubakar added that they have been trying to achieve that over the years, adding that legalising the body was one of his priority as a senator. He revealed that the mutual suspicion among engineers, architects, facility managers and surveyors would be adequately taken care of when the bill is put in place.