‘Gone are days phony consultants got jobs worth billions of naira’

Mr Tonye Oliver Braide was on Nov. 21, 2015 decorated the 26th president of the Nigerian Institute of Architects (NIA) at the close of NIA Annual General Assembly and Conference in Abuja. After his investiture, he spoke exclusively with Daily Trust. You had your biennial conference with huge turnout. What made the conference what it […]

Mr Tonye Oliver Braide was on Nov. 21, 2015 decorated the 26th president of the Nigerian Institute of Architects (NIA) at the close of NIA Annual General Assembly and Conference in Abuja. After his investiture, he spoke exclusively with Daily Trust.

You had your biennial conference with huge turnout. What made the conference what it was?
Well, part of it is the circumstance in the country right now. You know we have change of administration and we have very dynamic leadership and in the professional practice, it’s no longer business as usual. In the past, anybody stands up and says, “I’m a consultant and got architectural job running into billions [of naira]”.
Now, people have realized that things have to be done properly so those who had been masquerading as architects are now struggling to come and get registered and get into the fold. That’s why we had this outpouring of people and increased interest. We have leadership that’s ready to direct things right.

At your inaugural speech you talked about education of architects and their practice. Could you expatiate?
We’ve sent several teams to do accreditation of schools but it’s been quite depressing that over the past five years, we’ve found the quality of graduates is falling. The accreditation process conducted by the institute and the Architects Registration Council of Nigeria [ARCON] is certification of professional training while the accreditation by the National Universities Commission is for certification of academic quality of the programme. So if the professional quality has been certified and graduates come out and they can’t be at par with that certification, there’s need for us to re-examine the process. There must be a disconnect somewhere. Where do they lose it?
As they come out of school, we want to immediately carry out professional test to see their level of competence -it’s like a pre-qualification for the process. We have a process in which one spends two years of professional tutelage by filling a logbook that keeps record of all the work one does, one is exposed to several practical aspects of architecture in the field, then one comes to take exams.
But we found that the performance in the exams has been dwindling. Those who come out fresh from school seem to not know much when they come to firm and they become un-trainable and it’s getting alarming.
If we introduce this competency test at the point of graduation, it tells two things: we can immediately see where the loopholes are, we can re-examine the accreditation process – maybe they don’t have the capacity to look at the things they should look at.
We can also look back at the schools and see the quality of academia there. For those who’re in the middle of the road, we see how we can beef them. For those high, we see how they can get the right reward. For those who’re low, we’ll look for the right intervention strategy that can be developed to boost them.

But ARCON is already there. Why not support it to do its work better?
ARCON is mandated by law to carry out professional practice examination. But ARCON is a statutory body set up by government and we have the resource base. So the institute actually provides the resources.
We’re working in partnership. This exam qualifies you to be registered as an architect. Immediately you pass the PPB, ARCON is informed and that is also what qualifies you to become a full member of the institute. So you’re actually getting two things – the full membership of the institute which is like a business club and you can now proceed to the Architect Registration Council to get the license which qualifies you to stand as an architect and go through the process of developing a design and giving a final product which is more than just drawing lines.
 
We see that buildings are designed outside Nigeria but developed in Nigeria resulting in problems like poor ventilation. Has the institute given thought to this?
The totality of the problem has been the mindset of Nigerians. Most of the time we believe that what is ours isn’t right.
Another challenge is not having a good governance structure where people for some political or economic gains would prefer to go and contract some design and import into the country.
There are extant laws that tackle these types of things but those laws haven’t been brought to bear. The Architects Registration Council has responsibility in that regard but the law has been a little bit soft on those people.
But we need to have the right governance structure which we believe we have at this moment. If you have a governance structure that believes in anything goes, even if you try to get things right, it’s difficult. From this point forward, this kind of malpractices won’t be permitted. We have a government that has zero tolerance for corruption. We’ll work in consonance with the government to achieve the goals.

This takes me to what ICPC chairman said. He said corruption cases will be traced to architects who designed houses that get linked to laundered funds. How do you react to this?
The law of the land says if you buy a stolen good, you’re culpable. This is to dissuade people from buying stolen goods because if a thief steals and can’t dispose of what he has stolen, the incentive to steal isn’t there. There’s nothing new there. You who have helped the person who has stolen to hide the money, you’re culpable technically.

But architects are business people. Developers come and ask them to design. They do their work?
 The very first thing, when commissioned to do a job, the person has to give enough documentation to show that he actually owns that property. Most of the time when clients are commissioning architects, architects demand survey plan- a legal instrument that confirms ownership-the CofO, title document of the land. You won’t get paid for a project on site that is involved in litigation. So you on your own part have to confirm.
I know some architects who don’t follow the right part – they’re anxious to draw! Architecture is beyond just drawing. You must ask for documentation with which to open a file. If the man says he’s Mr Brown and the documents say he’s Mr Yellow, of course some question marks are there. You have to do diligence checks.

So you’ll support ICPC to deal with architects who fail to do all this?
I will support a process that deals with anybody who assists somebody to steal public funds. If Mr A stole money, certainly he’ll not build 72 houses under the name Mr A. And you know you’re talking to Mr A and the papers say Mr X. There’s element of deceit. The best you can do is to reject the job on the basis that the title is not well defined.

How many architects have we in Nigeria?
We have about 4,000 to 5,000 registered architects but we have floating…about 25,000 who have formal architectural education. We have another 15,000 who have some degree of exposure, they can use computer, draw some lines. Then we have some people who’re not architects…because the software is so user-friendly that some secretary can open up autocad and begin to work it and that can bring out what looks like design.
We have businessmen who just go buy catalogue of 1,000 house designs and start to build. There’s a very big job for ICPC to round up these people and make them go  to do formal training, get registered and come under a regulatory body so we have one symbol of quality.