By Jude Njoku

The Faculty of Environmental Design and Management, Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife in Osun state last week honoured some eminent built environment professionals for their outstanding contributions to the construction industry. The awards were conferred on the recipients at the annual lecture and award ceremony of the Faculty held at the University’s Oduduwa Hall.

The President of the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV), Mr. Bode Adediji was specifically decorated with the“Distinguished Alumnus/Professional of the Faculty of Environmental tal Design and Management” award. Others who were honoured at the event included the President, Association of Professional bodies of Nigeria (APBN), Mr. Joseph Olusegun Ajanlekoko, Nigeria’s first female Town Planner, Mrs. Catherine Kehinde George and a former Chairman of the Lagos State branch of the Nigerian Institution of Estate surveyors and Valuers (NIESV), Dr. Bolarinde Patunola-Ajayi.

Delivering the annual lecture which he titled “Politics and the challenges facing the built environment professions/professionals”, Mr Adediji who described the built environment as largely underdeveloped, under-deployed, and underperforming, enjoined construction industry experts to get involved in politics because “politics is too important to be left solely in the hands of politicians”.

The NIESV President stated that “if Nigeria can confront and tackle the issue of leadership challenge, overhaul her political architecture, reform educational system, enthrone a regime of self-sufficiency and faithfully implements Vision 20:2020, then the ultimate goal of fulfilling Nigeria destiny as the giant of Africa is assured”.

He regretted that Nigeria has continued to be confronted with daunting problems such as huge housing deficit, upsurge of slum dwellings, inadequate and decadent public infrastructure especially roads and rails, virtual absence of functional recreational facilities, inadequate provision and substandard shopping facilities, acute shortages of industrial parks and warehouses as well as the absence of recreational parks and gardens and land administration challenges.

Observing that in Nigeria, we think and to work as a nation on the basis of ad-hoc implementation template and “short-timeism”, Mr Adediji explained that this scenario has adversely affected most projects which depend on careful and long term planning. He decried what he called “Nigeria’s proclivity for policy somersault, describing it as the highest in the world.

The NIESV boss also decried the “quantum and quality of manpower available within the built environment”, saying it is too scanty for the huge challenges confronting the sector.

Looking at the challenges facing the built environment professions, Mr Adediji regretted that due to the leadership failure in the country, the built environment is “awash with volumes of policy papers and programmes but their implementation remains comatose for the past 30 years or more”.

Concluding, the nation’s number one realtor kicked against the practice of importing virtually everything required in the country.

“As Nigeria’s contemporary landscape of failure may be, the most unforgivable in relation to our discourse is the country’s enthronement of the prostrate culture of dependency on foreign country, foreign expert, foreign ideas, foreign expertise, foreign impetus and foreign loan before we, as a nation, can confront and tackle some of the key challenges that we face.”