By Prisca Sam-Duru

Chudi Onyemeri Kalu is a Property Developer, Real Estate investor and Rental Income coach who trains people on how to run real estate investment as well as take opportunities within real estate market. In this interview, Kalu who is also President of Africa’s Property Investment Group, reveals factors responsible for building collapse, preventive measures and fate of real estate business in Nigeria. Excerpt

What would you attribute as probable cause of the 21-storey building that collapsed in Ikoyi recently?

I think accidents do happen. We may not be too clear until we have the final report from that particular incident because there’s a panel that has been set up. But it happens when there is a disconnection between proper inspection, supervision, and engagement.

I don’t know the details of the 21-storey building that collapsed but I know that it is not every place that you build certain kind of structures. Soil texture differs from one place to another. You have a situation whereby you can go 21 meters into the ground on a particular soil, may be for 7-storey building; you can even go 40 meters into the ground in another place. Why soil textures differ from each other is because the stability where you are going to enjoy the solid platform, might be different from another one. When there is a vacuum, that is, if you build your house to the point that you do not get to the solid ground, the missing gap will either cause your house to sink, or tilt. That’s why I often say to anybody into construction that people may not have intension of playing pranks on the system because it does not help any person; it’s scary for the developers. But there’s what we call concrete testing; laboratory tests of whatever materials you are bringing into the soil. For instance, iron and,sand to check if it has chlorine inside. You also test the water to be used to mix the cement.

Are all those tests done here in Nigeria?

Yes, they do all the testing. A whole lot of developers do that and they have their laboratories in Lagos; there’s one in Yaba and I think there’s another in Ikeja. They run tests not because the government wants to clamp down on you but it’s for your own sanity. You can also have that as an evidence and as a way to measure what materials that are coming in. Nigeria has a vast mixture of importation coming from some weird places and people just want to buy cheapest materials. The problem with cheapest material is that it can destroy your lifetime investment and lifetime work. I always encourage people to conduct series of tests on the materials because something can be sparkling, yet of lesser quality.

Shouldn’t the expert know which material could cause a disaster in future?

They should know, but in the midst of high[1]level quantity, you may miss it out. That’s why some buildings are collapsing. From your experience, do you think developers adhere strictly to government building regulations? I don’t know about all developers but I can speak for myself and some of the developers that I know. They follow the right procedure in terms of testing. A lot of people even do that on their own and some of them keep those items[1]the results for future reference. Take the quality of cement for instance. All brands of cement are not the same.

But it appears we have only two brands of cement in Nigeria?

There are even more than two brands in Nigeria but I wouldn’t want to mention names. So, there are certain cement that you can use for certain soils in certain areas. There is a particular kind of cement that is better, not that you can’t use all of them for certain things but there’s a particular cement that you can use for what we call casting; like casting your columns. There’s another cement that is better in making blocks. So, this brand may be good for this one while another brand, for another one. It’s for the developer to know which of them to use per time and that’s why testing comes to play. If we don’t do all of that, we might be missing something. Also, I think that part of disconnection where government is also supposed to play a role; the role of regulators, there happens to be a lot of disconnections and communication gaps. Everybody needs to be more responsible; the developers, regulators, government that is overseeing some of the operations of developers needs to start playing more concrete roles in addressing some of these issues.

What’s the combination of professionalism involved in building projects especially ones beyond two floors?

Like the one I talked about the soil test part, they are called geotechnics. And what they do is to test the soil to ensure its able to hold the intended structure. So, you have an architect that has designed the building but, that does not mean that the building the architect designed can sit on that particular soil. If it can’t sit on that particular soil, its either you go back and change the architectural design, or change the number of floors or whatever you need to change, based on the tests conducted by the geotechnics. The geotechnics are called the forerunner; after you’ve gotten the site, they determine whether it is possible or not. They can also tell you the depth at which you should go in terms of your foundation, based on the research they’ve conducted on that soil. There are houses you see in certain areas; the windows are close to the roof because the house is sinking. This is probably because the foundation didn’t touch the last