As Nigeria grapples with the challenge of infrastructural development, immediate past president of the Nigeria Society of Engineers (NSE), Engr. Kassim Ali, has said that the government needs to trust its own professionals to handle these challenges. He spoke with CATHERINE AGBO
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Some ministerial nominees have just been confirmed by the National Assembly. As a professional, are you satisfied with the number of professionals among them?
We have already explained our position in a press briefing and we, the Nigeria Society of Engineers (NSE), are not happy at all. This is because when you talk of national development, you are looking at the area of provision of infrastructure, manufacturing, mechanised agriculture and every other thing that has to do with technology. Development is about technology and those best equipped to handle that are the engineers. Unfortunately, there is no registered engineer in the cabinet and we have made our stance on this known.
In the past, professionals have held positions in the country. Do you think the involvement of these professionals has had positive impact on national development?
Ordinarily, if I have to answer, I would say yes. If you look back at the history of development in the country, the times we had measurable improvement in infrastructure development were times when we had square pegs in square holes. When an engineer was the minister of works, the third mainland bridge was constructed. Only when we had an engineer as minister of telecommunication was there real improvement in telephony.
Take a look at the GSM revolution, everybody ascribes the revolution to the way it was handled by the Nigeria Communication Commission (NCC) and the NCC, at the time this happened, was headed by an engineer. In truth, it has been only in very few cases that they have been involved and that is our worry. If you are looking for development, why not bring the right people on board to bring about this development?
If we need development, we must involve engineers, so how can we have a cabinet without engineers mining the key engineering units and we are talking about development?
Is the NSE satisfied with the engagement of local engineers in the country?
Currently, Nigerian engineers are not deeply involved, and this is unfortunate. You see, in the private sector for instance, for you to have a construction company, you need a huge capital outlay and our banking system is not so friendly to give loans to you because you have ideas. They usually want something you can hold on to and how many people can afford that? Moreso, the interest rate is so high that it is difficult for an ordinary person to just go to the bank and get a loan. Getting involved in that perspective is very difficult. What is usually done is affirmative action, whereby there is a deliberate law by the government to set up something and give the support for indigenous capacity to grow. Those are the things that are done often and many countries have done that, and have been able to deploy their human resources to develop their infrastructure and today, they are refferred to as “developed countries”.
During General Olusegun Obasanjo’s military regime, he tried to bring some local engineers together to form a company and they built a bridge which is still standing today. Unfortunately, this was discontinued.
What effort is the NSE making to reverse the trend?
There isn’t much we can do as individuals but there is a lot the government can do. As president of the NSE, I wrote several letters to the president of Nigeria and discussed extensively with the government on the need to bring about this affirmative action and create a platform where engineers can be brought together, encouraged and supported. It is only in engineering that the cliche “practice makes perfect” holds true. We may make our mistakes but we’ll correct them in a short while. Many a nation have done it that way.
Some foreign companies come into the country and while constructing a road, for instance, bill the government more if there are rocks on the road. They go ahead to crush, sell or use the resource in construction. Others go as far as exporting this natural resource. Do you think this is good for the commonwealth of the country?
It is a very bad development, one of the those we have previously addressed. They have taken advantage of the loopholes in our system. The bureaucracy in Nigeria is too much. I’ll give an example: mining and quarry licenses in a city like Abuja are not issued by the minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), but by the federal ministry of mines. Many times, people are given licences to mine in places that have been identified and earmarked for other developmental purposes.
I recall that some time ago, I was involved in the construction of a very sensitive project around where a rock was located and somebody had already been licensed to blast the rock. What this meant was blasting the project, which was a very huge one. An arguement ensued, because the person in question did not just go there. He had a license and it took a lot of effort to get the FCT minister to talk to the minister of mines for the license to be revoked. The proliferation of agencies is not helping matters. If the FCT minister had the power to grant the licenses, some of these things will not happen.
If you go to Mpape, there are deep and dangerous wells there, created by man from mining but it is not within the power of the FCT minister to stop them, because they have their license from another minister.
These things have to do with our system and because the people in question are aware of the loopholes, they take advantage of it because they are not Nigerians and there is no patriotism. And that is why we always say that there is a need for us, as Nigerians, to be involved, because if a Nigerian is involved, he is thinking of what will happen to his friends and relations who are going to be affected by his action. But someone from outside has no such commitment; all he wants is money and once he gets it, he is good to go. He will leave the country and never return.
That is why nations take this issue of indigenisation very seriously, but somehow, over the years since independence, we have not really given much attention to the issue,though we have had assurances from the government that it would be looked into.
There have been instances where expatriates are brought in to build up certain things, but after they do and leave, you find that there are no local engineers who can maintain such projects, as they were not carried along in the development stage. What do you think should be done in this regard?
You see, the immigration law is very clear on how and when an expatriate should come into Nigeria. The law states that, “for every expatriate that will come into Nigeria, it must have been established that there is no Nigerian with equivalent qualification and skill and where such an expatriate comes, he should be here for a period of time and he has the responsibility to train at least two Nigerians who are supposed to be attached to him and within that period, should be able to acquire sufficient skill to take over and the expatriate goes back home”. That is the law but somehow, it has been violated over and over, especially in the critical sector, the oil and gas sector. Even at that, there are Nigerians who have worked with them and have acquired sufficient skill. In the 90s, there was an incident in the Kaduna refinery and petrochemical company, there was the breakdown of an element and some engineers in the company saved the country several millions of dollars when they insisted on fixing the plant against all intimidation. At the end they were punished, because they stopped those who were desperate to award the contract.
There is this intimidation that is going on, and people who do not have the courage give in to it. I do not think we are so dull in Nigeria; Nigerians are making waves everywhere around the world.
Our problem therefore is not about the capacity, intelligence or adequate training of Nigerian engineers. I was at an engineering function in the United Kingdom sometime ago and I was discussing with someone who said that if Nigerian engineers in the UK downed tools, the UK will come down. The London underground rail which is the pride of London is manned by a Nigerian, who is the director of engineering services there.
Do you think the failure of the federal government to pass the National Building Code into law has any role to play in the incidence of building collapse across the country?
I am privy to the content of the National Building code and I had cause to lead a delegation of Nigerian engineers to the National Assembly to discuss it at a public hearing. We are also surprised that it has not been passed into law, because it needs to be operationalised before it becomes legal. As it presently stands, it is a mere statement of intention and it is only when it is a law that there would be penalties.
Presently, under our current law, these issues can be dealt with as far as I am concerned, though I am not a lawyer. You see, if you hit and kill someone while driving, there is a penalty, it results to a jail-term without an option of fine, even though the person who drove the car did not manufacture it. It was a malfunction of either himself or the car that caused the accident, yet he is punished. How then will there be no punishment for someone who has no authorisation to build a house that goes to build a house and it collapses and kills people? These things happen and nobody is prosecuted, that is why they keep happening, because if you do not have any business with building a house and you go on to build it and it collapses, that means you set out with the intention to kill and that is my opinion on that. I had cause to be on a panel about this issue and I recommended the death penalty for whoever builds a house that will collapse and kill another person, it is wilful killing. When people do other things, they are punished, so why is it that people build houses that kill people, and they are not punished?
As professionals, we cannot punish these people because they are not our members. If they were, we would have set up a properly constituted committee. So, with or without the building code in place, if somebody commits an offence, he should be made to face the law.
I am hopeful that the building code would be passed into law.
Popular opinion has it that most of the incidence of building collapse result from efforts by the developers to cut cost, because of the high cost of building materials. What do you think should be done to bring down the cost of building materials?
All those arguements, to me, are unacceptable. If I am building a house, I should take into consideration the amount of money I have and if it is not enough for the kind of house I want, due to the high cost of building materials, I should be able to change it and do what my money can take, rather than embark on a project that will fail in the end.
You see, building materials are not the only things that are expensive in Nigeria, yet people deal with them.
There is what we call the Nigeria Building and Roads Research Institute which has the primary duty to carry out research in road and building materials and a lot of materials have evolved from the research. But whether the information has been disseminated is what I cannot say.
This goes to show that the government is also concerned about the reduction in the prices of building materials. I was watching a television programme recently and somebody said that the cost of producing a bag of cement in Nigeria today is about N400 and that the cost of cement should ordinarily not be more than N700. I totally agree with him, because it gives credence to the fact that the prices are artificial and government needs to intervene and bring those manipulating the system to book.
But the cement manufacturers have said that cement is just one element in building construction, and that there are several other elements that make up for the high cost.
Cement is a critical element in building and if you are talking about building collapse, cement is the only thing that will make a building to collapse, because there was no proper mix before the building was erected. In investigating collapse buildings, you will see that concrete, which is supposed to be stone, after setting for a maximum of 28 days is easily fragmented and can even be squeezed. Cement is the binder and when the binder is not effective, it becomes a problem. So, even though cement is an element, it is critical. People cut corners in the area of cement manufacturing and if there is going to be a collapse, it comes from the cement angle.
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