By Linus Aleke
The Surveyor General of the Federation, Surv. Abdulganiyu Adeyemi Adebomehin has blamed the incessant building collapse in Nigeria on the use of non-professionals in the built environment.
He explained that the problem of building and bridge collapse in the country is closely linked to inadequate information.
The Surveyor General of the Federation who said this while fielding questions from newsmen in Abuja, also said that surveying plays a very key role in the built environment.
Surv. Adebomehin said: “This is because the first thing needed before any form of construction takes place is surveying the land. After surveying the land, there is what is called the topography of the land. That is trying to know the shape of the land, if you did not get a good surveyor to do that for you, you would have lost that very important information, which of course will hurt the building in the long run. Another thing is the alignment of the pillars and columns in a house or bridge. This is the information that is needed to be provided by the Surveyor.
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“When you did not get a qualified surveyor to do this thing for you, and a pillar or column is misplaced and the weight is tilted to one side, there will be a collapse. Again, when you finished the construction, there is what we call “out built survey,” it is that equipment that we call the continuous reference station. The UN resolution states that all superstructures need to be monitored. A superstructure is any building that is more than five storey five-storey and has bridges. The essence of that is that there should be an early warning to enable evacuation before the disaster. The National Stadium, Air Ports, and the Head of Service complex need to have this equipment on them”.
He also disclosed that OSGoF carry out monitoring on Murtala Muhammed Bridge at Lokoja to see how stable the bridge is to be able to warn when it is no longer strong to carry the volume of traffic on it.
“That bridge was constructed about 40 years ago. Our Department of Geodesy is in charge of that. We use stud to monitor the bridge. What it means is that we have to go there physically within four months to read the stud and return it,” he concluded.
