Stakeholders in the real estate sector said in spite of the abundant building materials and components locally, builders still prefer to buy the foreign ones.
The stakeholders, who spoke in a separate interviews, noted that, the choice for foreign materials has, however, left local building materials abandoned.
The managing director, Bolyn Constructions Company Limited, Mr. Rufus Akinrolabu, said, while there is abundance of the local building materials in the country, demand for foreign goods and building materials has made those resources to be neglected.
Akinrolabu who doubles as the president, Building Material Producers Association of Nigeria (BUMPAN), stressed that, “many Nigerians prefer to show off by spending heavily on imported building components rather than use the local available building materials and technology.
“Necessity should be our mother of invention. When there was no importation and technology, people were building houses using laterite or mould/clay sand. To them, laterite was not good except for filling their foundations.
“Laterite is still available in abundance, with a little cement; we can make laterite bricks and build walls of houses, which often turn out very good. If you have a good foundation and you roof it properly, plasters the internal and external surface, the building will last.”
Most Nigerians, he stressed, believe that such housing strategy is archaic, and that there is civilisation and modernisation, hence, ‘they shun such housing style because it’s not fashionable to them.’
Technology, he said, has improved in the mould for bricks production, which is now different from what it used to be, yet Nigerians don’t patronise them.
(Leadership)
