ABSTRACT

This study examines the factors that affect effective accident investigation and reporting in the workplace, using Reynolds Construction Company (RCC), Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria, as a case study. It considers the common risks and dangers on construction sites, the measures used to control those risks, the procedure for effective accident investigation and reporting, and the factors that work against effective investigation and reporting. The study identified the following challenges: unrealistic investigation timeframes, failure to differentiate accidents according to their potential severity, a narrow investigative focus, an undermining safety culture and ineffective communication.

The study recommends that management and regulatory authorities enforce safety and health laws and ethics, including by employing more health and safety officials to ensure effective inspection, evaluation and compliance. It also recommends that awareness and sensitisation programmes explaining the procedures for investigating and reporting workplace accidents be intensified for workers and employees.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the Study

The construction industry is important to national economies everywhere. In Nigeria it contributes to employment, domestic capital formation and gross domestic product, even though it is held back by dependence on foreign inputs, economic volatility, weak linkages and poor project cost and time performance (Saka & Adegbembo, 2022). Its products, such as roads, bridges, housing, commercial buildings and water works, supply the infrastructure on which other sectors depend, and its activities draw on goods and services from many other industries.

Despite these benefits, construction work is hazardous. The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that nearly three million workers die each year from work-related accidents and diseases, of whom 330,000 die from accidents. Agriculture, construction, forestry, fishing and manufacturing are the most dangerous sectors, together accounting for about 200,000 fatal injuries a year, or 63% of all fatal occupational injuries (ILO, 2023). Among construction workers in sub-Saharan Africa, the one-year prevalence of occupational injury has been reported to range from 32.4% to 84.7%, with trips and falls, particularly from improvised scaffolds and ladders, as the leading cause, followed by crush injuries between materials or equipment (Ojo et al., 2025). In Nigeria, bamboo scaffolding is still widely used and is recognised as a safety problem (Sanni-Anibire et al., 2022), and falls among construction workers have been documented in Port Harcourt itself (Ngwu et al., 2019).

International labour standards set out what governments and employers are expected to do. The ILO Safety and Health in Construction Convention, 1988 (No. 167), which updated the earlier Safety Provisions (Building) Convention of 1937, applies to all construction activities. It requires member states to adopt laws or regulations, supported by technical standards or codes of practice, that give effect to its provisions. It makes the principal contractor, or the person or body with overall control of site activities, responsible for planning and ensuring compliance with the prescribed safety and health measures. It gives workers the right and the duty to take part in ensuring safe working conditions and to follow the prescribed measures, and it requires that workers be informed and trained about the hazards to which they may be exposed. It also provides that national laws should require occupational accidents and diseases to be reported to the competent authority within a prescribed period, and that appropriate penalties, corrective measures and inspection services be established to ensure enforcement (ILO, 1988).

Nigeria’s own framework is weaker in practice. The Factories Act (Cap. F1, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004) is the principal statute on occupational safety, but it has been described as deficient in scope and in enforcement (Adekile, 2018), and compliance with safety regulations in the construction industry is low (Umeokafor et al., 2014). The Employee’s Compensation Act, 2010 provides compensation for workers injured or made ill by their work and also aims at the prevention of workplace disabilities and the enforcement of occupational safety and health standards (Federal Republic of Nigeria, 2010). In December 2025, the House of Representatives held a public hearing on an Occupational Safety and Health Bill, 2025, intended to repeal the Factories Act and replace it with a stronger, enforceable framework aligned with ILO conventions (allAfrica, 2025).

Effective investigation and reporting of accidents lie at the centre of any serious attempt to prevent them. Investigation establishes what happened and why, while reporting and record-keeping make it possible to identify trends, recognise priorities, improve strategies and allocate resources for prevention (Din et al., 2022). In practice both are often weak. Under-reporting occurs at both organisational and individual levels, and in a survey of Nigerian construction professionals, protecting the organisation’s reputation was among the top-ranked reasons for organisations not reporting accidents (Din et al., 2022). Among workers, injuries are often not reported because of weak reporting systems, ignorance of the procedure, fear of losing the job, or the informality of employment (Ojo et al., 2025). A study of small and medium construction firms in Abuja, Kaduna and Kano found that most had no structured accident record management system and that no legislation obliged them to record and report accidents and their causes (Abubakar et al., 2018). Without records, the safety problems of the industry cannot be addressed (Abubakar et al., 2018).

Culture also matters. Among informal construction artisans in Osun State, many believed that injuries are predestined or caused by enchantment, and this view, which reflects a loss of personal control, can discourage active use of safety precautions (Ojo et al., 2025). Religious beliefs have likewise been linked to health and safety practices and performance in construction (Umeokafor & Windapo, 2019). Where such beliefs and attitudes are common, investigations that look only for individual fault or spiritual explanations may fail to identify the real causes of accidents. Safety management systems, by contrast, have been shown in a systematic review to bring benefits to the construction industry (Kineber et al., 2023).

It is against this background that the present study examines the factors affecting effective accident investigation and reporting in the workplace, using Reynolds Construction Company, Port Harcourt, as the case study.

1.2 Profile of the Case Study Organisation

Reynolds Construction Company (Nigeria) Limited (RCC) is a subsidiary of SBI International Holdings AG (SBI), a transnational construction and development group headquartered in Switzerland, with subsidiaries in several countries (DevelopmentAid, n.d.). SBI’s first venture in Nigeria dates from 1956, when it established the Nigersol Construction Company Limited with Nigerian investors, and RCC is the flagship of SBI’s Nigerian operations (DevelopmentAid, n.d.). RCC is mainly engaged in road construction, building construction and water-related construction, and it builds commercial, residential, industrial and institutional buildings (Devex, n.d.). It also owns and operates stone quarries and asphalt plants as its projects require (Devex, n.d.). Road construction has become an increasingly important part of its operations, and its completed projects include roads, highways, bridges and airport runways.

1.3 Statement of the Problem

Construction sites are among the most dangerous workplaces in the world (ILO, 2023), yet accidents on Nigerian sites are poorly recorded and investigated. Reporting is weak, safety legislation is poorly enforced, and many firms keep no structured accident records (Abubakar et al., 2018; Adekile, 2018; Din et al., 2022; Umeokafor et al., 2014). Where accidents are investigated at all, the quality of the investigation depends on how much time is allowed, how seriously near-misses and potentially severe events are treated, how broadly the causes are sought, how open the workplace culture is, and how well information flows between workers, supervisors and management.

The result is that the causes of accidents are not properly identified, lessons are not learned and similar accidents recur. This study therefore examines the factors that affect effective accident investigation and reporting at Reynolds Construction Company, Port Harcourt.

1.4 Aim and Objectives of the Study

The aim of the study is to examine the factors affecting effective accident investigation and reporting in the workplace, with Reynolds Construction Company, Port Harcourt, as the case study. The specific objectives are to:

1. identify the common risks and dangers on construction sites;
2. examine the risk control measures in use at Reynolds Construction Company;
3. describe the procedure for effective accident investigation and reporting; and
4. identify the factors that militate against effective accident investigation and reporting.

1.5 Research Questions

The study seeks answers to the following questions:

1. What are the common risks and dangers on construction sites?
2. What risk control measures are used at Reynolds Construction Company?
3. What is the procedure for effective accident investigation and reporting?
4. What factors militate against effective accident investigation and reporting?

1.6 Significance of the Study

The study will be useful to the management of Reynolds Construction Company and other construction firms, whose accident investigation and reporting practices it examines and which can use its findings to strengthen those practices. It will help health and safety officers and supervisors to understand the obstacles to effective investigation and how to remove them. It will provide regulatory authorities with evidence for enforcing safety and health laws and for improving record-keeping and reporting requirements, which Nigerian studies show to be weak (Abubakar et al., 2018; Din et al., 2022). It will also help workers and employees by showing why awareness of reporting procedures matters for their own protection, and it will add to the limited Nigerian literature on accident investigation and serve as a reference for future researchers.

1.7 Scope of the Study

The study is confined to Reynolds Construction Company (RCC), Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria. It covers the common risks and dangers on construction sites, risk control measures, the procedure for accident investigation and reporting, and the factors affecting effective investigation and reporting.

1.8 Limitations of the Study

The study is limited by its use of a single company as the case study, so its findings may not be generalised to all construction firms in Nigeria. Access to accident records and the willingness of respondents to discuss accidents openly may also have been limited, since concern for an organisation’s reputation is a recognised reason for under-reporting (Din et al., 2022).

1.9 Definition of Terms

Accident: an unplanned and unexpected event that results in injury, ill health, damage or loss.

Near miss: an unplanned event that did not result in injury or damage but had the potential to do so.

Hazard: anything with the potential to cause harm.

Risk: the likelihood that a hazard will cause harm, combined with the severity of that harm.

Risk control measures: the steps taken to eliminate hazards or reduce the likelihood and severity of harm.

Accident investigation: the systematic process of establishing what happened in an accident and why, so that its causes can be identified and recurrence prevented.

Accident reporting: the formal communication of an accident to management and, where required, to the competent authority.

Safety culture: the shared values, attitudes and practices that determine how safety is regarded and managed in an organisation.

1.10 Organisation of the Study

The study is organised into five chapters. Chapter One introduces the study. Chapter Two reviews the relevant literature on construction risks, risk control, accident investigation and reporting, and the factors that affect them. Chapter Three describes the research methodology. Chapter Four presents and analyses the data. Chapter Five gives the summary of findings, conclusion and recommendations.

References

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Adekile, O. M. (2018). Occupational safety and health in Nigeria: National and global dimensions. In Cross Crossing Law and Jurisprudence: Festschrift in honour of Professor Akin Oyebode. Faculty of Law, University of Lagos.

allAfrica. (2025, December 12). Nigeria: Reps seek modernisation of workplace safety laws to protect millions of workers. https://allafrica.com/stories/202512120070.html

DevelopmentAid. (n.d.). RCC – Reynolds Construction Company (Nigeria) Ltd. https://www.developmentaid.org/organizations/view/7398/reynolds-construction-company

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Umeokafor, N., & Windapo, A. (2019). The influence of religious consciousness on construction health and safety practices and performance. Journal of Construction in Developing Countries, 24(1), 23–47. https://doi.org/10.21315/jcdc2019.24.1.2