Architects Council gets Government support

The Federal Government has inaugurated a 49-member team for the Architects Registration Council of Nigeria (ARCON), with a promise to provide necessary guidance and support towards promoting the development and growth of architectural profession in the country.

Minister, Lands, Housing and Urban Development, Mrs. Akon Eyakenyi who inaugurated the council in Abuja, last week, said the new council has qualified and experienced architects taking on the strenuous task of regulating the training and practice of architecture.

ARCON was established in 1969 and mandated to set bench marks and to control the training and practice of Architecture in Nigeria through Architects (Registration etc) Act (1969 no 10). In 1985, the council was involved in a legal tussle that exposed the loopholes inherent in the Principal Act. The Act was then amended the second time to eliminate these loopholes, making it more effective and dynamic and more relevant to the needs of the country.

This amendment, which came in 1990, also affected the composition of the council. Today over 4,000 home grown Architects have been registered and are contributing to the Economic Development of Nigeria in various vocations.

However, there are still challenges of large shortage of architects required by the various sectors of the economy, gainful employment, capacity building and full protection of the local architects through implementation of Local Content policy and adequate funding of the Council.

Eyakenyi enjoined the council members to take their assignment with a great sense of responsibility and commitment by ensuring that the confidence reposed on them is not misplaced. “ You must therefore consider your appointment as a call to national service in this period when the profession is permeated with quacks resulting in poor quality design and building collapse in the country,” she said.

She charged the council to continue to enhance the education of architects, especially on the National Building Code (NBC).

The minister said: “Architects in their traditional roles of building projects must therefore be properly informed, equipped and disciplined to deliver quality service to meet the goals and objectives of the NBC, which is to ensure that buildings are redesigned, constructed and occupied in a way that health and safety are not compromised.”

Responding, the outgoing ARCON President, Umaru Aliyu said that the council would soon roll out measures to tackle the menace of building failures and quacks in the built environment.

He appealed to professionals in the built environment to support the move to enact an Act that would back the implementation of the National Building Code.

Credit: Guardian Newspaper