PROTECTION, REGULATING, AND CHALLENGES OF DISTRESS AND BUILDING COLLAPSES IN NIGERIA: THE WAY FORWARD.

Building collapse has assumed a draconian and agonizing dimension in present-day human experiences with residential and industrial structures. The causes for this seemingly regular agonizing and traumatic human and property destructive occurrence range from defective and substandard building materials and appliances, unqualified and incapable engineers and workmen, unsustainable engineering culture, circumvention of proper government approvals, greed, circumventing statutory regulations, and seemingly defied legal, economic, regulatory, and political solutions and corrections. A doctrinal research approach reveals that this regular occurrence of building collapse knows no bound in the sphere of its casualties and after effects, including economic and financial loss, human lives, and other related socioeconomic deprivations. The event stands out as a monstrous canker worm and a major component of an environmental disaster that affects the entire fabric of society. The traumatic pains suffered as a result of the attendant social and economic losses in particular cannot be overemphasized. It is rather thought provoking that “after a few days or weeks of media frenzy, attention shifts to other ‘breaking news’, while the harrowing descent into depression would have just commenced for the orphaned and widowed, bereaved and deprived, amputees and disfigured, destitute and broken hearted.” This paper recommends that this pertinent occurrence, which is mostly caused by the compromised activities of humans, be effectively looked into for the causes to be effectively addressed and solutions to curb the continuous occurrence and bring it to the barest minimal in not total control.