WHY BUILDINGS COLLAPSE IN NIGERIA

By
ENGR. VICTOR O. OYENUGA
HND, BSc(Hons), MSc, DIC, PGD(Comp. Sc.), FNSE, FNIStructE, FNICE, MNIOB
MD/CEO: Vasons Concept Consultants Ltd (Consulting Engineers and Town Planners) and
President, The Nigerian Institution of Structural Engineers.

his appointment in 1989 as a Engr. Oyenuga is the author

Senior Lecturer and Acting of the following publications:
Head of Department of Civil 1). Todays’ Fortran 77
Engineering. His design Programming 2). Simplified
works include: Teslim Reinforced Concrete Design,
Balogun Stadium, Surulere, 3). Concise Reinforced
Lagos, Reconstruction of Concrete Design 4).
Petroleum Products Jetties RCD2000 (a Reinforced
Apapa, Ikeja Plaza and the Concrete Design Computer
various projects (including Package) and 5) Design and
Engr. V. O. Oyenuga (an the 14m Cantilever Stadium Construction of Foundations.
engineer and a builder) became Grandstand) of Babcock
a Partner of M/S Vasons University, Ilishan Remo, his Engr. Oyenuga is the current
Concept Group (now Vasons town of birth. He is a Fellow President of The Nigerian
Concept Consultants Ltd) in of the Nigerian Society of Institution of Structural
1991 and currently the Engineers and the Nigerian Engineers.
MD/CEO. He taught briefly at Institution of Structural
Yaba College of Technology Engineers and Corporate Engr. Oyenuga is married
and Lagos State Polytechnic, Member, The Nigerian with children and they are
Isolo, Lagos, where he resigned Institute of Building. members of the Seventh-Day
Adventist Church in Nigeria.

1.0 INTRODUCTION
The central objective of a designer of a building structure is safety and economy. What then makes
a shelter or structure to stand that is, withstand all the forces of nature that are willing to pull it
down? Three major components can be identified as follows:
a) The professional behind the structure;
b) The materials used for the structure and
c) The techniques or construction methodology adopted for the structure.
The first component leads to the question - who are the professionals? The only set of professionals

that makes or mars a structure in terms of safety is the Structural Engineers. No other, not even

their closest counterparts- the civil engineers. Prof. D.N. Nwokoye, an erudite Professor emeritus

of Structural Engineering, University of Benin, Benin City, Nigeria, and former President, The

Nigerian Institution of Structural Engineers (NIStructE) defined a Structural Engineer, in his book

titled The Philosophical Bases in Education and Practice of Structural Engineering as: “An
Engineer who having attained the prescribed academic standard in the field of Structural

Engineering or cognate fields and who having reached professional maturity in the practice of

Structural Engineering is recognized as such by the Regulating Professional Body or bodies”.

In practical terms, a structural engineer, in this country, is

a) a COREN registered Structural Engineer OR

b) a COREN registered Civil Engineer who MUST OF NECESSITY be a Corporate
Member of the Nigerian Institution of Structural Engineers (NIStructE).

Thus, a civil engineer who is not a Corporate Member of NIStructE should not be entrusted with
the structural safety of any structure - buildings, culverts, bridges, dams, etc. In other words, to
ensure safe building, the designer must be someone who is certified to carry out the design.

The best design by the best and most qualified designer does not guarantee safe structure except the
materials for construction is of the correct quality. The materials mostly used for building structure
in the country are cement, sand, coarse aggregates (gravel and granite) and iron rods. Then most
common type of cement used is Portland Cement and more often than not meet the required quality
requirements in terms of setting time, soundness and strength. Sharp sand are obtainable from
shallow rivers, hence salt contents are relatively low and permissible. Sharp sand from lagoons and
oceans (if possible) should be tested for salt concentration. Gravels are perhaps the best coarse
aggregates because of their natural roundish nature. The major problem is the dirtiness of the
material. A properly washed gravel is better than crushed stone or granite. The flaky nature of
crushed stone is a major set back in terms of strength.

The issue of iron rods is the major problem that is facing concrete designers in the country today.
The rods are undersized (11.5mm instead of 12.5mm) and characteristic yield strength less than
410N/mm2 when the new code (Eurocode) is putting the minimum to be 460N/mm2. Thus, in
terms of materials much is required to be done in the areas of iron rods properties.

In addition to good design and good materials, good workmanship with adequate quality control is
desired. The methodology of construction must be strictly followed. For example, the quality of
water (water cement ratio) in a concrete mix goes a long way to determine the strength of such
concrete. It is not therefore, enough to judge concrete mix by workability alone.

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2.0 PRECAUTIONS NECESSARY
There are many precautionary methods that can be adopted to prevent building collapse and some
are alien to the client.

2.1 SOIL TEST:

The first precaution against structural collapse is the carrying out of soil test. Soils vary from one
place to another and the cost of carrying out such test is generally in order of 0.1% of the building
project. That is, N100,000 for a building worth N100m and for a multi-storey building of over
N1bn, one probably needs about N600,000 or 0.06%. Thus, the bigger the cost of construction, the
less significant the cost of soil investigation. The essence of soil investigation includes but not
limited to:
 Confirmation of soil bearing Strata;
 Confirmation of soil bearing capacity,
 Confirmation of soil settlement rate and
 Confirmation of soil general properties.
Depending on the soil type and load to be carried (that is, structure type) soil investigations can be
limited to simple penetrometer tests or extended to deep bore holes especially for high rise
buildings.

2.2 DESIGN AND USAGE.

The live loads (user loads) of any building is a factor of the usage, for example a library is
5.0kN/m2 while a residential building is designed to a maximum of 2.0kN/m2, usually, 1.5kN/m2.
Thus, a building for residential purposes should not be converted to places of assembly like a
church or library, except such activities are limited to the ground floor. Thus, a major precaution is
that the usage of the structure as envisaged during the design should not significantly change
during the real occupation. The factor of safety embedded in the design procedure may not be
strong enough to withstand such change.

2.3 CONSTRUCTION METHODOLOGY.

The method of construction is important and the rules must be followed. The quality control to
achieve the desired result is very important. In project where a lot of concreting is involved, design
mix must be carried out to achieve the concrete grade specified by the designer. There is no
correlation between concrete grade and concrete batch by volume. That is, it is erroneous to say

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grade 25 is equivalent to 1:11/2:3 or 1:2:4. Specification by volume should be limited to very small
project.
Falsework (formwork) design is very important to construction especially where massive
concreting is involved and at a relatively high level. The strength of such falsework to carry the
intended structure must be known.

3.0 FAILURE MODES

A building can fail as a result of many defects and such failure modes include:
 Punching Failure
 Bearing failure
 Flexure Failure
The first two are due primarily to poor design and failure to carry out proper soil investigation.
Each of this will be discussed briefly.

3.1 PUNCHING FAILURE

This occurs in a framed building (a building made up of columns, beams and slabs). Due to
inadequate thickness of the pad base the column punches through the base and causes disruption in
the entire loading system and finally a collapse occur. This is illustrated in Figure 1.

Natural ground level Natural ground level Sinking

Punching
column Structure

Crack

Base original
Position

Inadequate
base (area)
Inadequate base
(thickness)

Figure 1: Punching Failure Figure 2: Bearing Failure

To avoid punching failure, the designer must provide enough base thickness that satisfies punching
shear. This calls for a professional structural engineer.

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3.2 BEARING FAILURE
Bearing failure can occur in both framed buildings and load bearing wall buildings. It is the failure
due to inadequate bearing area. That is, the load imposed on the soil is more than what the soil can
bear. This calls for sound soil investigation and expert design. In most cases inexperienced
designers assume a bearing pressure which in excess of the soil bearing capacity and failure occurs.
The good news is that it can easily be remedied if detected on time before it leads to massive
failure. The bad news is that it calls for additional column and column bases which may affect the
usability of the building, in some cases. Bearing failure manifests through cracks of the natural
ground after the base is cast, loaded and the foundation filled back as shown in Figure 2.

3.3 FLEXURE FAILURE

Flexure failure is the most common fatal failure that may not give any warning and may occur
suddenly. It is due to the failure in most cases of the columns. When a column fails, it transfer its
loads to other columns which are ill prepared to receive such and hence those columns fail too
leading to massive collapse of the structure. This is the most prevalent in our country. The reason
is simple, such columns were designed by inexperienced designer, they are under-designed and
may not be robust enough to withstand the load imposed on them. Poor detailing can also lead to
flexural failure especially in cantilever slabs as shown in Figure 3.

x 1.5x Crack in the structure

Wall or Beam Support

(A) Good Detailing (B) Bad Detailing

Figure 3: A Cantilevered Slab

Poor materials and poor construction will lead to under design and cause flexure failure too. The
strength required will not be achieved due to poor quality or poor content of the materials. For
example a concrete member designed to grade 25 concrete will fail if the actual concrete strength is
less than 20N/mm2.

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In the areas of iron rods, most designers would assume the British Standard value of 410N/mm 2 for
high yield high tensile bars. In actual practice some rods are as low as 380N/mm2. Thus members
so designed will be undersized and can lead to flexure failure.

3.4 FALSEWORK FAILURE

More often than not collapses that occur during concrete casting were due primarily to collapse of
the formwork. When casting at a very high level is involved steel props are recommended rather
than bamboos and 2x3 planks.

For normal heights, bamboos should be used as props rather than 2x3 planks. Their strength is
better and possibility of buckling is minimal. The natural lateral supports at intervals braced the
bamboo tree and makes it a stronger material for vertical false work.

4.0 SOME BUILDING COLLAPSES IN NIGERIA

The Nigerian Institution of Structural Engineers is saddened by the continuous collapses we
experienced in the country. We are also of the opinion that lessons can be learnt form each collaps
e. These two premises make us set up Committees at the expense of the Institution to carry out
proper investigations, where possible, of collapsed site. The results of these investigations were
not only revealing but startling. Some are shared in this paper.
a. Auchi, Edo State, Collapse: Early in the year a two-storey building collapsed at Auchi,
Edo State. By the order of the Institution President, the Benin Branch got permission from
the Edo State Government and visited the site. A report was prepared and forwarded to the
Edo State Government. The President of the Institution personally presented a copy of the
report to the current Minister for Lands, Housing and Urban Development during the
stakeholders meeting on the issue. The major cause of failure included:
1. Poor concrete strength in the order of 10N/sq. mm. using Schmidt Hammer. The
minimum supposed to be 20N/sq. mm.
2. Excessive loading that was not planned for during the design (additional floor) and
3. Non-robust of structural members, that is, poor design or no-design of the columns,
beams etc.

b. Jabbi, Abuja, Collapse: Again the Abuja Branch of the Institution led by the Chairman,
Engr. Nwafor, FNIStructE, visited the site and presented a report to the Council of the

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 Institution. The Council forwarded the report to the Minister, Federal Capital Territory,
Abuja and the major causes of collapse include:
1. Founding concrete columns on pack of blocks as foundations,
2. Very weak concrete strength, also in the order of 10N/sq.mm. The Code recommends
25N/mm2 but for low quality job we use 20N/mm2 in the country and
3. Under-designing of structural members (to save cost??).

c. Oshodi, Lagos State, Collapse: No proper investigations could be carried out because of
some interest groups. However, flexure failure of poorly designed beams (large spans
beams etc), columns and poor foundations were implicated.
d. Port Harcourt, River State, Collapses: Investigations from our members revealed that most
of the failures were due to poor design and inadequate foundations.
The analysis of the above leads to the following conclusions:
i. The structures were not designed by registered or certified structural engineers,
ii. The structures were not supervised by certified structural engineers, hence, poor quality
materials were condoned,
iii. The client do not believe in or ignorant of soil investigations and, hence, believe that any
foundation is good enough and
iv. The client believe that one or two additional floors could easily be added to the structure
without recourse to the designer.

5.0 THE WAY FORWARD

So far we have looked into the main ingredients for safe building construction, precautions that
should be taken to prevent building collapse and the various failure modes. The way forward can
easily be deduced and we can state as follows:

5.1 PROFESSIONAL INSTITUTION

The Nigerian Institution of Structural Engineers is the only professional body entrusted with the
structural safety of buildings and other structures, hence its opinion must be sought and
respected at all times. As an Institution, the current administration is working on plans to train
and re-train structural engineers and structural designers including those in the public sector of the
economy. We appeal to the various governments (Federal, State and Local) including Agencies of
governments where these professionals work to release them for such training. Our field
experience has shown that the training from our universities, to say the least, must be augmented.
In addition, a draft code of practice for Design and Construction of Concrete Structures has been
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written and the first public presentation for comments and amendments was held (sponsored by our
parent body, The Nigerian Society of Engineers) at the Faculty of Engineering, University of
Lagos, on March 30, 2010. The same public presentations were done in Kano, Kaduna/Zaria,
Owerri/Enugu and comments on the documents were received from Port Harcourt and Warri
centres. The final document would be presented to the Standard Organization of Nigeria through
the Nigerian Society of Engineers before the end of the year. In addition and to assist the public
we have resolved to register firms practicing structural engineering and publish the names
regularly. Such firms are firms registered by Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria
(COREN) as Consulting Engineers.

These are some of the way forward from our own end to curb the incessant collapse of structures in
our society.

5.2 THE ESTATE DEVELOPER/BUILDING OWNER/CONTRACTORS.

The way forward to these honourable entrepreneurs is simple. Give responsibility to the qualified
professionals – structural engineers, services engineers, architects etc. Most well experienced
draughts men can do “a very good detailing of structures without any design” that will stand the
test of time but at what cost. Engineering design means SAFETY and ECONOMY. Most of such
structures are over reinforced which can lead to brittle collapse. The owners and constructors
should ensure that the structural design and supervision are handled by qualified and registered
structural engineers, since doing otherwise is Kobo wise thousands of Naira foolish. Quality
materials should be used and quality control employed especially for all concrete works. Testing
of iron rods should be done at all times to ensure that the designed strength is achievable otherwise
the values obtained should be forwarded to the design structural engineer for possible action.

Concrete work must be to the required grade as designed. Trial mixes of concrete and carrying out
crushing test prior to the work will ensure this. A workable concrete is easier to vibrate and good
vibration expels air to produce a very dense concrete. The quantity of water in the concrete mix
must be limited, as much as possible, to the quantity required for hydration of the cement. Excess
water reduces the overall concrete strength. Formwork should be made to be non-sticky in order
not to damage the concrete product edges and expose unduly the rod reinforcements. Adequate
cover is necessary to protect the reinforcements from fire and weathering.

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5.3 THE STANDARD ORGANIZATION OF NIGERIA (SON)
Our Institution has been working with SON and will continue to do so. The final draft of the
Concrete Code will be presented to SON for publication before December, 2010. The need for
SON to step into the issue of iron rods production cannot be overemphasized. As a body we are
asking SON to ensure that:
 Iron rods has characteristic yield strength of 410N/mm2 minimum;
 Iron rods are of standard sizes of 8mm, 10mm, `12.5mm, 16mm, 20mm and 25mm etc.
The production of 9.5mm, 11.5mm etc should be banned in the country and
 Each consignment, as a matter of policy, be accompanied with a delivery certificate stating
clearly the rods diameters and the yield strengths.
The attainment of the above will not only reduce costs but also enhance safety.

5.4 FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

We are in strong collaboration with our organ of government, COREN, to visit any site where
collapse has occurred, investigate and produce a report. There is always a lesson to be learnt form
each collapse site.

6.0 CONCLUSION
Collapse of buildings is as old as the world itself but the frequency and the type of buildings
collapsing in our country is what is worrisome. It can be nipped in the bud before it grows into a
monster. Let round pegs be put in round holes. Allow only structural engineers to perform
structural duties as the designer and supervisor of the building structures. Houses are to be safe
dwelling places and not coffins for mass burial.

We can achieve it, if we determined to do so. When there is the will, the good God will always
provide the where withal to achieve it.

Thank you for your rapt attention.

Further Readings
1. Simplified Reinforced Concrete Design, by Victor O. Oyenuga, 2nd Edition, Asros Ltd., Lagos, 2005.
2. Design and Construction of Foundations, by Victor O. Oyenuga, 2nd Edition, Asros Ltd., Lagos, 2009.
3. BS 8110: Parts 1 and 2, Structural Use of Concrete, BSI, United Kingdom.