Hello Nigerians,
About 45years ago, one of my professors at UNILAG warned us as follows,
"Doctors bury their mistakes, but engineers are buried by their mistakes."
I cannot comment on the doctors part.
However as regards the one concerning engineers I cannot but wonder. Does it still hold? Did it ever?
I have over the years been involved in a number of projects where the design and construction dealt with large static and dynamic forces. These don't come naturally to the everyday layman. That is why the structural engineer is avoided like a plague by project developers. And that includes churches, with disastrous consequences.
However as regards the one concerning engineers I cannot but wonder. Does it still hold? Did it ever?
I have over the years been involved in a number of projects where the design and construction dealt with large static and dynamic forces. These don't come naturally to the everyday layman. That is why the structural engineer is avoided like a plague by project developers. And that includes churches, with disastrous consequences.
It is only when a N100m structure collapses that one realises, belatedly, that a design/advisory bill of N5-10m is actually on the cheap. The campaign to use professionals should not belong just to the NSE and other stakeholders involved in the construction industry. Government should play it's own part by a readiness to pay Nigerian engineers the going rate as opposed to the current practice of forcing them to cut corners, something it would not try with Julius Berger. That's called setting trends. Similarly the insurance industry should include, as part of its coverage, a requirement that a building construction project must have had a least a minimal structural engineering backup.
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