Assessing the Builders’ Role towards Sustainable Construction Industry Development in Nigeria

Abstract

Statutorily, Professional Bodies such as the Nigerian Institute of Building (NIOB) and its Council of Registered Builders of Nigeria (CORBON) remains significant construction industry (CI) stakeholder in the development of sustainable construction industry in Nigeria going by the Government mandate backing its operation. This paper aims to examine the contribution of the professional builders in the development of sustainable construction industry in Nigeria. List of Registered Professional Builders (RPBs) and Registered Consultancy Firms (RCFs) as well as the list of Nigerian States, LGAs and their population distributions were obtained and adopted for the study to examine the level of spread of these professionals and their services across Nigeria using her six Geo-Political Zones (GPZ). Data was elicited from the professional body’s periodic publications of qualified licensed practitioners and their location within a given period. Data analyzed revealed that Lagos State hosts the highest number of RPBs and RCFs with (553) and (12) respectively, followed by FCT with (359) RPB and (8) RCFs respectively. South-West Zone which has six States and accounts for (19.65%) of the Nation’s population produced the highest number of RPBs (809) and (13) RCFs respectively. North-East with six States and (112) LGAs accounted for 13.55% of the Nation’s population, produced the least number of RPB of (84) and (1) RCF respectively. The results obtained may imply that the level of construction activities is highest in Lagos State. Also, twenty states out of the total (37) states did not produce any RCF and only Jigawa State produced the least number of RPB with (01) value. These appalling results obtained pose challenges to CI stakeholders including CORBON, NIOB, NUC, Tertiary institutions and Government at all levels in the quest to develop a sustainable CI in Nigeria.