Nigeria’s maintenance culture appalling – IFMA

Despite the awareness of facility management, the country still lacks a maintenance culture, the International Facility Management Association, Nigerian Chapter, has said.

The association stated that the nonchalant attitude of Nigerians towards facility management was a contributing factor to the infrastructural decay in the country.

A facility management instructor, Mr. John Martins, said the number and calibre of Nigerians in the facility management profession had increased over the years but that the management of infrastructure had yet to improve.

He said, “Every time I come here, I see improvement in the calibre and professionalism of the people here; an example is that the class I teach is always better that the previous one. Though the instructions and materials are the same, but the quality of the people differ at every point in time. That is one of the best forms of professional achievement; the calibre of people, their experience and knowledge, and their interaction with other people.

“I wish that I will see a lot more improvement in the overall facility management as long as buildings are concerned; a lot of that is out of the control of professionals because they are managed by other people, but people are also starting to get interested in the life cycle of a building; that means from the very beginning to the maintenance of the building.

“We are seeing improvement in that, but it is a little bit slow and I think it is because there is no culture of maintenance and security in Nigeria.”

Martins, however, said the situation would soon change because more people now demand for better maintenance of buildings.

“People all the way from the top to the bottom; the politician, investors and everyone else now want higher quality of building and they are demanding and pushing it,” he said.

According to him, professionals can remedy the situation with the knowledge that they are getting from certification courses being run by the association.

Martins added, “They can also use a lot of their education to break open some of those barriers by increasing their knowledge of finance, for example. Finance is not just about cost, but it is about managing assets and getting a good return on investment.

“A lot of investors in Nigeria told me they want to hire quality, which means they don’t just want to keep throwing money at it; they want to make it last a little bit longer. I think that is part of a good movement forward. More people are starting to learn what their budgets really are and how to turn that into asset management more than just to keep the floors of a building clean.”

A former President of IFMA, Nigerian chapter, and current Chairman, Nigerian Institution of Estates Surveyors and Valuers, Lagos chapter, Mr. Stephen Jagun, said there was the need for the citizens to imbibe the maintenance culture.

He said, “If you put structures in place and you don’t maintain them, it is a waste. What we should do as professionals is ensure that we put in place a proper programme to maintain these facilities so that they can serve their purpose, both for the individual owners and the nation at large.

“We allow things to degenerate before we think of maintaining them in this country; when they start degenerating at first, we should do things about them,” he said.