Omoyele Sowore arrives Calabar for 62nd AGM of Nigerian Institute of Architects

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The presidential candidate of the African Action Congress, AAC, Omoyele Sowore has arrived Calabar the Cross River state capital metropolis to attend the sixty-second annual general meeting (AGM) of the Nigerian Institute of Architects, NIA NEGROIDHAVEN can report authoritatively.

While addressing journalists at the Margaret Ekpo International Airport immediately he arrived Calabar, the AAC presidential candidate explained that normally building collapse should not be a thing in Nigeria in 2022 if the issues of incompetence and corruption had been addressed. Sowore who noted that there are sufficient legislation to fix the virility of buildings in Nigeria said that the problem in the subsector hinges on enforcement and compliance with national and international best practices.

Omoyele Sowore in Calabar on Thursday with his AAC members

His words, ‘I think the most important thing about building collapse has something to do with enforcements, the laws are there but the people but the building code enforcements are very weak due to corruption and incompetence as we always say.

‘A lot of people who are supposed to monitor and manage this issues don’t even know what are the standards to fulfil to get a building acceptable and there are no great follow ups in ensuring that the kind of products that are used in building these buildings are at par with national and international standards so, that is where the problem comes from, otherwise no building should be collapsing in the year 2022. It is a shame.

‘Architects are designers of building. We will appear before some other bodies that are within the value chain of the building system’, he said.

AAC’s Sowore further observed that his priority as a presidential candidate in the forthcoming general elections in 2023 is to discuss with Nigerian architects how building deficits for Nigerians can be addressed. He said his presidency aims at building forty million new homes for the citizenry.

‘My focus here is to engage them to discuss how we can fulfill the number of building deficit for Nigerians. There are over 40 million new homes that needs to be built so that we can be sure that majority of our people have a roof over their heads. And that’s a priority for me as a presidential candidate.’

Concerning his take about the credibility of the electoral umpire, INEC Omoyele said he does not believe in the Independent National Electoral Commission. He said, ‘I don’t trust INEC as it is… We are running for a number of reasons : to draw attention to why the people should be President in this country and should occupy powerful positions, we are running to also expose the flaws of the system and maybe we can get faster to our main agenda which is a revolution, faster than they might even think. Because if they keep short-changing Nigerian people, they can’t escape a revolution’, he concluded.