‘Use appropriate technology & materials to offset Nigeria’s housing deficit’- Obua

Ifeanyi Obua, a graduate of Mechanical Engineering with specialisation (MSc) in Technology of machine manufacturing from Krivoy Rog Technical University, Ukraine, is the CEO of Obua Technology Solutions LTD.

Obua mentioned legislation and empowerment of land ownership, use of appropriate technology, training of labour force in the construction industry among others as the solution to Nigeria’s housing deficit.

In an interview with Nigeria Real Estate hub correspondent, Obua noted that “No magic can be done as the purchasing power is low due to failure of the public and private sectors to improve the quality of living for Nigerians. The housing deficit is about 17 million and conservatively, we are not doing up to 1 million units annually.”

“The solution is multi-facetted innovation in terms of funding, use of appropriate technology & materials, use of self-help/communal labour etc, legislation in area of land ownership and empowerment of land ownership even in rural areas, training of labour force in the construction industry”

Speaking on the peculiarity of the kind of construction offered by RapidCabin, an alternate building method powered by Obua Technology solutions, Obua said “Containers and prefabs can actually reduce the cost and duration of construction as buildings can actually be manufactured offsite and assembled within 2 weeks.”

He also stated that prefabs can be carried on trailers and delivered to locations where they are needed.

Speaking on its cost effectiveness, Obua noted that “Prefabs are also competitive cost wise when compared to block buildings with basic finish” and that “they require little maintenance.”

“They are more energy efficient due to higher insulating properties of the wall panels”

When asked on expertise of workers and how the company deal with getting workmen who can work with the peculiar materials, he said the company constantly research and read about innovations, giving kudos to World Wide Web as information can be gotten on the go. He said that their type of construction require hard working welder, fabricators and installers.

On dealing with the risk of containers running out of supply and the implication of such incident on the cost of finish products, he said “Containers really are not our major materials, but containers are constantly being constructed everyday especially in China, so we can never run out of supply. We can also build containers if need be.”

 

Comparing the alternate method of building to block method, Obua pointed out the following advantages:

• Portability – can be carried around on a Truck-trailer
• Ease of construction (duration) – Houses can actually be manufactured
• Almost Maintenance free
• Inbuilt insulation.

Still on bridging Nigeria’s housing deficit, Obua noted that this type of construction can be made to suit every pocket with right application of technology and that With the type of insulation we use, ingress of heat is reduced and internal temperature can be managed thereby having no cause to fear possible effect of Climate change.

Obua Technology Solutions ltd is a company established to provide full engineering support and maintenance services. Our vision is to as much as possible domicile production and manufacturing of goods/services in Nigeria, so we are interested in simplifying manufacturing so as to make it attractive to Nigeria in order to create jobs and improve the quality of life.