‘90% life cycle of buildings ensured by facility managers’

Ninety per cent of the life cycle of a building is being ensured by facility managers, the President of Nigerian Academy of Facility Managers (NAFM) and National Chairman of the Nigerian Institution of Builders in Facilities Management (NIBIFM), Olufemi Akinsola, has said.

Akinsola spoke in Abuja on Friday at his investiture ceremony and award of fellowship with the theme: “Facilities Management: An Xray on Stakeholders and Policies”.

He said, “Ninety per cent of the lifecycle of a building is being carried out by facility managers. That is the process of making a building comfortable, convenient and habitable for occupiers the responsibility of facility managers.”

He further said, “Every stakeholder in the facility management profession must be retrained. You cannot say because you are a builder, you are a facility manager. No. You have to be retrained to upskill yourself to qualify as a facility manager. It is then you can now refer to yourself as a facility manager, otherwise you will still remain a builder, an architect and not a facility manager.”

In his keynote address, Vice Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, Prof Kabiru Bala, said at the level of institutions, ABU and the University of Lagos had been offering post-graduate programmes in facility management for close to two decades.

He said stakeholders were vigorously working on policies and training packages that would optimise the practice of facility management in Nigeria.