BCPG Urges Artisans To Expose Children To bricklaying, Block-laying, others

As a way of increasing the number of artisans in the country, masons have been advised to teach their children the trade of bricklaying, block-laying and stone craft in order to avert a decline in the workforce.

The President, Building Collapse Prevention Guild (BCPG), Mr. Kunle Awobodu, gave this advice at the Annual General Meeting of the Lagos State Bricklayers Association in Ikorodu.

Awobodu identified the decline in the quantity and quality of bricklayers as a major challenge in the country’s bricklaying trade.

He said that despite the high rate of unemployment, most youths were not interested in the bricklaying trade as they considered it tedious and bereft of economic growth parameters.

He added, “Nature abhors vacuum. The aging and debilitated bricklayers must be replaced by younger ones with time in order to ensure continuity of this essential service to humanity.

“Importation of bricklaying and rendering or plastering services from neighbouring West African countries is shameful and of great disservice to the Nigerian economy.”

Awobodu told the bricklayers that in order to stop the negative trend, a new programme aimed at improving bricklaying in the country would begin this year.

He said that an agreement between the Nigerian Institute of Building, Industrial Training Fund and the Cement Technology Institute of Nigeria for the training of artisans across the country had been reached.

The BCPG president said, “It is a subsidised training scheme that will attract Nigerian youths to acquiring both theoretical and practical knowledge in various building trades. There will also be skills upgrading training for the existing or old artisans to enable them graduate to the craftsmen grade.

“In addition, building artisans and craftsmen will now have the privilege of undergoing certification process through the National Vocational Qualification Framework of the Nigerian Institute of Building. The National Board of Technical Education has also recently given the NIOB the awarding status for trained artisans’ certification.”

According to him, the grading process, which will be handled by qualified assessors and verifiers, will ensure that artisans and craftsmen of high quality are graduated from the planned educational system.

“This development will enable the artisans to overcome the tragedy of not aspiring to higher rungs in the construction sector,” Awobodu noted.

The Coordinator, BCPG Ikorodu Cell, Mr. Kayode Beckley, urged the bricklayers to observe safety procedures on sites so as to avoid fatal accidents, while another leader of the guild, Mr. Sola Amusan, explained the various building setbacks to the bricklayers.

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The Ikorodu Divisional Chairman of the bricklayers’ association, Mr. Azeez Oyebiyi, who lamented the infiltration of the trade by quacks, asked the BCPG to help in fighting the menace of quackery.

Another leader of the BCPG Ikorodu Cell, Mrs. Kemi Odutola, noted that the existing collaboration between the group and the Lagos State Building Control Agency and the Lagos State Safety Commission would help eradicate quackery in the masonry trade.

The General Secretary, Lagos State Bricklayers’ Association, Mr. Niyi Akinmoladun, stated that inadequate communication between building artisans and professionals was a major factor responsible for the poor team work spirit on construction sites.

The Principal, Government Technical College, Ikorodu, where the meeting held, Mr. Abiodun Lasisi, and the Publicity Secretary, NIOB, Lagos State Chapter, Mr. Babatunde Aina, also counselled the bricklayers against compromise on sites.