By Chris Ochayi, Abuja

The chairman, Senate Committee on Lands, Housing and Urban Development, Senator Bukar Abba Ibrahim has condemned recent demolitions of estates and other structures in the Federal Capital Territory, FCT and its environs by the Federal Capital Development Authority, FCDA. He has therefore called on the Government to stop further demolitions.

Senator Ibrahim who spoke at the 2012 induction ceremony for 274 newly registered quantity surveyors and 19 newly practicing firms and QS professional clinic on ethics and values, described the demolition exercise as unacceptable especially now that the country is grappling with a housing deficit of about 17 million units.

”To me this issue of demolition is crazy. In a country where people are grappling, fighting and crying for more houses, for somebody to demolish houses that are already built, is crazy. Those who are charged with the responsibilities to look after buildings in the FCT should not allow people to complete erecting their houses only for them to wake up and pull such structures down.

A recent demolition in Abuja

Senator Ibrahim described the justification always given by the Development Control department of FCTA  which is that many developers usually ignore the “stop work order” given to them, as weak argument. He maintained that the relevant authorities should not allow people to engage and continue with structures in the first instance before using law enforcement officers to halt the developments later.

“If defaulters don’t stop work, why not bring in law enforcement team to stop them? I don’t think Nigerians are that lawless. If you ask them to stop work and the developers still continue, you should bring in the law enforcement agents to stop them,” he said.

Speaking from another perspective, Senator Ibrahim decried the unbridled pursuit of materialism and the attendant primitive accumulation of wealth by some Nigerians

The former Governor of Yobe State who is also a quantity surveyor, tasked his colleagues  to endeavour to “earn the trust and confidence of your clients by the way you carry out our professional activities.”

His words: “In a country where real and perceptive corruptions are high, quantity surveyors should play a leading role in the promotion of ethics, values, honesty and professional integrity as bulwark against corruption. Professionals are never part of the moneyed class even in developed countries. They belong to the middle class which is the most important segment in any nation economic stratification. Leaders of countries emerge from among professionals who are often seen to chart the political and economic dissection from most countries”.

President, Quantity Surveyors Registration Board of Nigeria, QSRBN, Mallam Husaini Dikko insisted that the quantity surveyors’s cost advice must be sought and obtained on any building and construction project in which government fund is involved at the three tiers of government.

”This is because government fund is tax payer’s money and public accountability demands so”, he said, adding  “we should as a country be able to capture our capital formation at real cost and Gross Domestic Product as actual factor costs not inflated costs.

”The involvement of quantity surveyors will lead to huge savings which will be deployed to social services and infrastructure for welfare maximization for the citizenry.”

He regretted that construction projects have become instruments for money laundering by highly placed officials who play all kinds of tricks to evade the eagle eyes of the EFCC and ICPC.