HOUSING AND INDIGENOUS TECHNOLOGY: A REVISED EDITION (original) (raw)

First Published 2001 ISBN 978-35765-4-2 Revised Edition 2022 ISBN 978-978-59681-7-0 © Adekoyejo B. Jolaoso, 2022 Foreword Prof. Bolanle Wahab, PhD Ibadan, Nigeria. 2022 Preface The glue holding the focus of this book together is the building industry. It is therefore pertinent that building should be defined from the onset. What is building? Building can be regarded as a system of thought, art, science and business of organizing space for human and human activities, making use of man and available materials that includes capital. Building also includes the construction of shelters, housing and schools etc. On the other hand, building materials refer to those natural or raw substances used for erecting structures that have been transformed using available technology. The amalgam of professions, businesses, organisations and institutions engaging in provision of services and/or delivery of buildings including structures of various descriptions and not excluding supply of materials by the industry constitutes the entire building industry. This extensiveness of organisations and services involved in the building industry cannot but generate a large employment of labour. To a reasonable extent therefore, the building industry is labour-intensive. As such, its place (the building industry) in the economy cannot be under -emphasised. In some cases, the building industry of a country is often regarded as the measure of the level of the nation’s development, especially taking into account the accessibility of the country’s citizens to basic human needs like housing. Governments that have recognised the building industry’s crucial roles have tended to respond accordingly with formulation of positive policies that will encourage the development of the sector. Among the public areas where such positive efforts are seen (or their lack manifest) are in the operations of agencies of government like the Ministries of Works and Housing (at federal, state and local levels); housing and property development corporations also at state and federal levels; the federal and primary mortgage institutions; urban development banks and their contemporaries, national housing banks; and all that efforts that go into improving housing provision, construction and development in the country. The creation and funding of national housing bank made capital available for loans to state and local governments as well as individuals represents another positive step because of the potential of this step to stimulate the building industry, a stimulation which in turn will generate employment beside increasing the housing stock in the country. Good policies, consequently, are harbingers of positive outcomes in many varied to the people and the country at large. In Nigeria, around 1995, the then late Gen. Sanni Abacha administration launched a new national housing policy. The policy envisaged the delivery of about 120,000 housing units to different classes of people within two years. The beneficiaries were targeted to come from all the states of the federation. Unfortunately, the impact of this programme was not felt. The laudable programme ended up on paper. Evident is that, the housing stock in the country as at today is grossly inadequate, and worse is that majority of people in Nigeria are incapable of accumulating the saving that could assist the building industry build an investible pool of funds through which mass and affordable housing development can be financed. With the huge deficit, in terms of quality and quantity, that have continued to confront the housing industry in Nigeria, the pressing issue has become how the country can cope with the stark problem of producing adequate housing for the masses of the nation’s people at affordable cost. How can Nigeria achieve this? This question has its share of cynics who believe "it is a myth" to think that such development can occur given the many negative social, economic, cultural and technological challenges troubling the country. This book takes a positive note however that, in spite of those challenges, there are potentials for the country to achieve affordable mass housing for the poor and average Nigerians. What is required primary is to face the reality that our flair for foreign materials and construction techniques are parts of the major impediments. The substitute or alternative solution or way to go is to bring indigenous building materials and technology to the rescue. This has to happen if Nigerians must have shelters to live in. Shelter in the context of this book, is therefore key to a viable building industry as it is of high social utility and value in protecting people from exposure to inclement weather and external aggression from preys of all sorts. Homelessness poses direct challenge to whatever stride the building industry is laying claim to. It could be recalled that in ancient times, provision of shelter by man was mainly using materials obtainable from nature, exploiting branches of trees leaves, a n d using palms as cover. Where rocks exist, they become of special advantage. Later, the technology developed into the use of sun-dried bricks, stones, sticks or timber, bamboo, organic/inorganic wastes (straws, fibres, cow-dungs) because of their cheapness, availability, Strength, durability and dignity. There are examples of these shelters built with simple and available local materials. In this list are: • The Ziggurat (Mud and stone). • Tomb, Places in Egypt-The Zoser's stepped Pyramid at Saqqara. Egypt. • Bight of Benin (stabilized mud brick and plaster, thatch, timber shingles), Benin, Edo State, Nigeria • Kofar Buka-The Kano wall (Mud and vegetable materials), Kano State, Nigeria • Zaria Mosque (stone, stabilized earth without straw and cow dung), Kaduna State, Nigeria • Centenary Hall, Ake. Abeokuta (stone, mud, timber), Ogun State, Nigeria Others are found in our rural areas characterized by peculiar architecture of Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, Efik and other ethnic groups. They build using peculiar and similar local materials like mud, sticks/timbers, coconut shells, palm kernel clinkers, twines/fibres etc. In the construction of walls and floors, sometimes they use first stones and mud as the foundation, and subsequently erect using leaves and bamboo, while employing sticks and thatches for roofing. These dwelling houses organised into clusters and courtyards formed our pre-colonial-and-early-part-of-our-post-colonial life. They are still evident in the structures having arches, domes and pinnacles common in the Hausa land, the high-pitched thatched roof and masterly use of stone by the Yorubas and the palm kernel clinkers, twines/fibres that are features of the Efik traditional houses. Unfortunately, modernity and the flair for foreign taste regarding building materials, housing designs, etc. have brought about neglect in the use of our local building materials and indigenous technology leading to the escalating costs of buildings. While there is an argument that this development may not to be totally unconnected with Nigeria’s previous colonial masters' influence, foisted by the former’s imposition of their materials and concepts on Africans, whereby traditional buildings (built from locally sourced materials) were pulled down to give way to their type of structures, what has since happened decades after the independence would however suggest that Nigerians have their part of the blame. This work addresses the gap; it is a sort of clarion call for the use of locally sourced building materials and adoption of indigenous building technology. For our independence and sovereignty to be meaningful, we must own the means toward attaining one of the means of achieving basic needs of humanity. Particularly, when the development of appropriate local construction technology that is efficient with low-capital base is feasible. Fortunately, this line of thought, in recent times, has been enjoying government's support, including that of some private institution with the example of the establishment of the Nigerian Building and Road Research Institute; The Raw Materials Development Council; Housing Corporations, and the various building materials development schemes among others. Over the years, these institutions have conducted studies of various types towards discovering local substitutes for foreign building materials. Existing to a reasonable extent therefore is knowledge about improvement in the traditional methods of building, local materials such as burnt bricks, stabilized mud bricks with various compositions like those using about 15% cement and 15% sand mixed with bitumen (Asphalt). A compact brick-making machine has also become part of the products of the research into local building technology in the country. Other positive developments include the reconversion sawmill board; the emergence of bamboo and bamboo Crete; sand Crete blocks; the fibre (coir) roofing sheets; boards; thatch; light-weight concrete with oil-palm clinkers; coconut shells; clay tiles; and many others. This book offers some recommendations at the possibility of accomplishing mass housing delivery using these materials of the old alongside infusing appropriate indigenous building technology. There is a lot that can be achieved. This is the desire and motivation behind the book. Nevertheless, it is hoped that this work will stimulate further research into the development, promotion and application of these building materials that can be sourced locally, especially through developing ways by which they can be in mass quantities to bring the cost of materials to the level that affordable housing can be within the reach of many Nigerians.