Chizoba Nwobodo

Redefining CEEQUAL for a Nigerian Context Within Nigerian Conditions

Chizoba Nwobodo

Redefining CEEQUAL for a Nigerian Context Within Nigerian Conditions

The negative environmental impacts attributed to Nigeria’s industries are simply ignored in favour of economics or out of sheer ignorance, with the construction industry being one of the key perpetrators. The growing trend in the construction industry in developed countries is such that the environmental issues associated with their infrastructure development is acknowledged and addressed to an extent. However, a large proportion of the practitioners in Nigeria still feel that this is simply a Western phenomenon that has nothing to do with them. Nonetheless, it has been duly noted that a prominent driver that has promoted environmental responsibility during practice in construction industries in more advanced countries, has been through the development and use of viable, competent and thorough environmental quality assessment tools.

However, the current structure, conduct and performance of the Nigerian construction industry does not afford it the capacity to respond to the kind of policies and initiatives required to produce an environmentally sustainable construction process, thereby rendering an environmental quality assessment tool ineffective. Thus, the objective of this dissertation was to develop viable guidelines to foster the consideration and incorporation of environmental issues into the delivery of infrastructure development projects in Nigeria. The CEEQUAL scheme, version 3.1 was examined for this purpose, which was followed by a case study on the A30 road improvement project. This was carried out to generate guidance on environmentally sensitive practice. The analysis brought to light several criticisms against the CEEQUAL scheme.

Following this, a set of guidelines addressing some of the environmental issues such as strategic land use, energy and transport in Nigeria were developed. This study also investigated barriers in Nigeria preventing both CEEQUAL and the guidelines proposed from being implemented, including an unstable corruption, lack of institutional capacity and a dearth of human and technological capabilities. Further developments to yield a very robust set of guidelines were proposed. Regardless of the status quo, it is believed that there is the potential for practice within industry to change.