THE FACTORS RESPONSIBLE FOR POOR INFRASTRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT OF LOCAL CHURCHES IN NIGERIA

ABSTRACT

This study set out to determine the factors responsible for poor infrastructural development of local churches in Nigeria. The study employed an exploratory research design, using questionnaires to collect data from respondents. The study area for this research is Imo State in eastern Nigeria. The population of the study consists of selected local churches in Imo State, Nigeria, drawn from a total population of 352 church officials and members. Random sampling technique was used in selecting 50 respondents from this population, a sample size chosen in light of the financial strength of the researcher, coupled with time constraints. The results of the study showed that poor infrastructural development leads to death and loss of property in Nigeria. Also, incompetence of contractors is a major reason for poor infrastructural development. Additionally, the quality of building materials has a great deal to do with poor infrastructural development. Lastly, the cost of building materials contributes to poor infrastructural development of local churches in Nigeria. The study therefore recommended strict adherence to codes of practice, determination of the bearing capacity of soil before design, obtaining approval before commencing construction on site, ensuring that Building Control Officials verify compliance with approved building plans, adequate supervision, carrying out proper site investigation, strict conformance to working drawings, prohibiting the use of quacks, and adherence to specification.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the Study

Since independence, successive Nigerian governments have made concerted, if largely quantitative rather than qualitative, efforts to expand the country's housing and building stock through substantial budgetary and policy provisions. Surprisingly, however, the rate at which existing structures are collapsing continues to call for urgent attention.

The scale of poor infrastructural development scattered across Nigeria is alarming, and it is difficult to fully appreciate what effect it has had, and continues to have, on the building industry and on the Nigerian economy as a whole. Okunola (2022) reports that Nigeria witnessed a significant rise in building collapse incidents over the two decades leading up to 2021, ranking the country first in Africa for the frequency and intensity of building collapse over that period; the collapse of a 21-storey building in Ikoyi, Lagos, in November 2021, which killed at least 45 people, remains one of the starkest illustrations of the scale of the problem. One can only imagine what these structures might have become had they been properly constructed in the first place.

Local churches are far from immune to this trend. Onomivbori and Agbafor (2023), focusing specifically on worship centres in Nigeria, found that many church buildings are especially vulnerable to structural failure because they are frequently expanded, extended or converted from smaller structures without the benefit of proper structural re-assessment, and because congregations, eager to save costs, sometimes rely on unqualified artisans rather than registered professionals to carry out such extensions. Their study identified immediate causes similar to those found in the wider building sector, including substandard materials and poor workmanship, but also drew attention to remote causes peculiar to church buildings, such as the pressure to accommodate rapidly growing congregations within structures that were never designed for such capacity.

A building may be understood as an enclosure of space designed for a specific use, intended to control the local climate, distribute services and dispose of waste; more technically, it is a structural entity capable of securing itself by safely transmitting the loads it carries to the ground (Nicholas, Nwalusi & Francis, 2022). Okoye, Apeh, Olaye and Osuji (2023) similarly describe a building as a structure for human activity that must, above all, be safe for its occupants. Despite this, buildings have, at various points, posed serious threats and dangers to the people who use them, either during or after construction, whenever they fail to meet this basic requirement.

Collapse, broadly, occurs when part or the whole of a structure fails and suddenly gives way, such that the structure can no longer serve the purpose for which it was built. Poor infrastructural development, in this sense, represents an extreme case of building failure, in which the super-structure crashes down, either totally or partially (Okoye, Apeh, Olaye & Osuji, 2023). Building failure typically occurs when there is a defect in one or more elements of a building, caused by the inability of the materials making up those elements to perform their intended function effectively; left unaddressed, such defects may ultimately lead to poor infrastructural development or outright collapse.

Buildings are meant to provide shelter and convenience to the people who use them, yet the same buildings have, all too often, become a danger to those same people. Every building is expected to meet certain basic requirements, including buildability, sound design performance, cost effectiveness, quality, safety and timely completion (Onomivbori & Agbafor, 2023). Generally, buildings are also expected to be elegant and functional; in practice, however, many projects fail to meet even the most basic of these requirements, and the recurring incidence of poor infrastructural development, some of which has claimed innocent lives, is a direct consequence.

Beyond the human and material factors typically discussed in the literature, recent geoscientific research has drawn attention to environmental and geological contributors to building collapse that earlier Nigerian studies had largely overlooked. Ohenhen and Shirzaei (2022), using satellite radar data to study land subsidence in Lagos between 2018 and 2021, found that differential land subsidence, in some areas exceeding four millimetres a year, was closely linked to foundation damage and a heightened risk of building collapse, and estimated that several thousand buildings in the city remain exposed to a high or very high risk of collapse over the medium to long term as a result. While their study focused on Lagos, its findings are a reminder that poor soil investigation and inadequate attention to ground conditions, factors long identified as recurring contributors to building failure in Nigeria (Okoye, Apeh, Olaye & Osuji, 2023), remain just as relevant today, and arguably more so, given the pace of new construction across the country.

Many studies have been carried out, and various workshops organised in major cities across the country, by different bodies, government agencies and institutions, in order to investigate the causes of poor infrastructural development in Nigeria. Okoye, Apeh, Olaye and Osuji (2023), reviewing 177 recorded cases of building collapse in Nigeria between 1973 and 2022, found that these incidents had claimed nearly one thousand lives over the period reviewed, yet noted that comparatively few of the underlying studies had gone on to establish, with any precision, how each identified factor directly contributes to collapse in specific cases, including those involving local churches. This gap remains part of the motivation for the present study.

There are many factors that contribute to poor infrastructural development in Nigeria, chief among them structural design deficiencies and weak quality management (Nicholas, Nwalusi & Francis, 2022). Quality management, in this context, entails material variability, testing variability, professional judgement, contractor variability, poorly skilled workmen and unprofessional conduct; Okoye et al. (2023) found that the use of substandard construction materials, poor supervision and the engagement of unqualified artisans, sometimes referred to as quacks, remained among the most frequently cited causes of building collapse across the cases they reviewed. The present study aims to examine the cases of poor infrastructural development of local churches in Nigeria specifically, with a view to identifying the causes, effects and possible solutions.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

Poor infrastructural development is a defect, imperfection, deficiency or fault in a building element or component; it may also result from an omission in performance. The degree of poor infrastructural development can therefore be related to the extent to which a building deviates from its “as-built” state, which in most cases represents the standard considered acceptable within the relevant neighbourhood, locality, state or country (Okoye, Apeh, Olaye & Osuji, 2023).

However, poor infrastructural development can more simply be defined as the total, partial or progressive failure of one or more components of a building, leading to the inability of the building to perform its principal function of providing comfort, satisfaction, safety and stability.

The incessant collapse of buildings in Nigeria has become a matter of great concern to all stakeholders, including professionals in the building industry, government, private developers, clients, users and neighbourhood residents alike. Onomivbori and Agbafor (2023) argue that this concern is especially pressing for local churches, given that worship services routinely bring together large numbers of people, often including children, within structures that are not always subject to the same level of professional oversight as commercial or residential developments. The researcher's concern about the increasing incidence of building collapse nationwide, and its particular relevance to local churches, forms the basis for this study, which sets out to identify the major causes, effects and probable remedial measures for poor infrastructural development among local churches in Nigeria.

1.3 Objectives of the Study

The main objective of the study is to examine the factors responsible for poor infrastructural development of local churches in Nigeria. The following are the specific objectives of this study:

1. To examine the causes of poor infrastructural development of local churches in Nigeria.

2. To identify the effects of poor infrastructural development of local churches in Nigeria.

3. To identify the remedial measures or approaches to poor infrastructural development in Nigeria.

4. To assess the extent to which factors peculiar to local churches, such as building extension or conversion without proper structural re-assessment, contribute to poor infrastructural development in Nigeria.

1.4 Research Questions

1. What are the causes of poor infrastructural development of local churches in Nigeria?

2. What are the effects of poor infrastructural development of local churches in Nigeria?

3. What are the remedial measures or approaches to poor infrastructural development in Nigeria?

4. To what extent do factors peculiar to local churches contribute to poor infrastructural development in Nigeria?

1.5 Significance of the Study

The following are the significance of this study:

The outcome of this study will educate the general public and the government of the day on the causes, effects and solutions relating to poor infrastructural development of local churches in Nigeria. As Okunola (2022) notes, effective disaster risk reduction in this area depends on decision-makers having access to reliable, locally grounded evidence; this study aims to contribute exactly that kind of evidence for the local church context, which existing national-level studies have generally overlooked.

This research will also serve as a resource base for other scholars and researchers interested in carrying out further research in this field. Building on recent reviews such as that of Okoye, Apeh, Olaye and Osuji (2023), which catalogued decades of building collapse incidents without a specific focus on places of worship, this study should, if applied, help provide a new and more targeted explanation of the topic as it relates specifically to local churches in Nigeria.

1.6 Scope/Limitations of the Study

This study focuses on poor infrastructural development of local churches in Nigeria, with careful examination of the causes and effects, and with a view to identifying a lasting solution to the issue of incessant poor infrastructural development in the country.

Limitation of the Study

Financial constraint – Insufficient funds tend to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing relevant materials, literature or information, and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).

Time constraint – The researcher engaged in this study simultaneously with other academic work. This consequently reduced the time that could be devoted to the research work.

REFERENCES

Nicholas, I. O., Nwalusi, M. D., & Francis, O. O. (2022). Building collapse in Nigeria and its consequences on the architect's role as the leader of the building team. Jordan Journal of Earth and Environmental Sciences, 13(1), 16–25.

Ohenhen, L. O., & Shirzaei, M. (2022). Land subsidence hazard and building collapse risk in the coastal city of Lagos, West Africa. Earth's Future, 10(12), e2022EF003219. https://doi.org/10.1029/2022EF003219

Okoye, J. U., Apeh, S. T., Olaye, E., & Osuji, S. O. (2023). Review of building collapse in Nigeria. NIPES Journal of Science and Technology Research, 5(1), 179–194.

Okunola, O. H. (2022). Quantifying frequent building collapse and disaster risk reduction in Nigeria. Brookings, Africa in Focus. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/quantifying-frequent-building-collapse-and-disaster-risk-reduction-in-nigeria

Onomivbori, J. E., & Agbafor, O. (2023). Assessment of structural failures in Nigeria: A case study of worship centre. Creative Artist: A Journal of Theatre and Media Studies, 16(1), 126–138.