NHITE strengthens partnership with NBRRI on improving quality of road construction
By Matthew Denis
The Nigerian Highway Institution and Transportation Engineers ( NHITE) and Nigerian Building and Road Research Institute have concluded plans to collaborate in strengthening the quality of road construction in the country.
The National Chairman of NHITE, Engr. Hassan Saidu made the disclosure in Abuja during a courtesy visit to the Director General of Nigerian Building and Road Research Institute ( NBRRI), Prof. Samson Duna in Abuja yesterday
The Chairman said, “We are here to further strengthen our collaboration with NBRRI in terms of handling local and international training, technical visits to project sites, career talks to schools between our team and NBRRI team.”
Engr. Saidu explained that they are also planning to implement some of the research works they had together with the institute.
He stated, “Our coming here is to emphasise some of these things we have been doing together and see to fruitution the research works in the nearest future.
“We are proud of our collaboration with NBRRI, especially through local and international training and we are also trying to carry out some of the research work that has been carried out by this great organisation. In fact, our coming here is to emphasise some of these things that we have been doing and ensure they come to fruition and make the work of research be seen by everybody in this country.
“Even now, in terms of training we are planning a workshop to discuss rigid and flexible pavement design. It is an informational workshop and we are ready to educate the public on that.
“We have embarked on various technical visits to Bodo-Bonny road and see the type of concrete construction in various parts of the country.”
Responding, the Director General of Nigerian Building and Road Research Institute ( NBRRI), Prof. Samson Duna said, “What we do basically is to conduct research in the area of building our roads. Anything that affects building, anything that affects roads is part of our mandate and we always do that. Bringing out recommendations on the best way to design our roads, on the best material to be used for buildings and just to mention a few.
“Today we are lucky because our agency hosted NHITE, a professional body, a body responsible for routes and transportation in Nigeria. We discussed a lot of things that have to do with common interests which include one training where we can have joint programs together.”
Prof. Duna revealed, “We look at how to have training together and you know, when you train somebody you are adding more knowledge to him. It’s more like a capacity building. So basically we agreed that we are going to go into training together.
“We are going to visit infrastructural construction where they are constructing roads, especially waterlock areas, Where they are constructing bridges we will go together to share ideas that have to do with how to improve the infrastructure under construction.
“Another area that we do is that we agree together that we are going to use laboratory equipment so that we utilise the best way to use the materials. When you use laboratory equipment, you are going to test the quality of materials and at the end you come up with a material that meets the standard.”
According to the DG, “One reason why our roads are failing is that we are using inferior materials that were not tested.”
He stressed, “NBRRI has one of the best laboratories in the country. For now, there is no institution, there is no research agency that can best talk about laboratories in civil engineering equipment like that of NBRRI.
“NBRRI has imported quite a lot of equipment within the past three years, so that is why we are extending hand of fellowship with NHITE to partner and utilise this material to construct our roads and if standard materials are used, our road will be longlasting, our road will be durable and will have low maintenanced.”
The DG revealed that, “One of the institute’s findings is that they were able to carry out a lot of research or studies on roads that were constructed like the Enugu-Port Harcourt road, Bauchi-Gombe road, and Bauchi Kano road.
“We did a lot of road research and part of what we had discovered basically is that low quality material was used during the construction. The process of construction was not adhered to. The quality of raw material used, even the lattice used for the road construction was not there. The level of compaction was not adhered to. The drainages have failed.
“And the other thing, how to conclude the issue of maintenance. Every structure needs to be maintained when there is a small pothole on the road. If we don’t maintain it by tomorrow, it becomes two or three times and that’s part of the bedrock and so on and so forth.”
Prof. Duna revealed that the institute will be hosting a programme this year where professionals are coming from abroad and professionals in Nigeria.
He said, “We intend to carry out a comprehensive training together and this training is holistic. This training will be practically oriented. We use our equipment in the lab to produce materials and we intend to test the material in the field. So you can see it’s a training that does not end on paper. It will end with a practical demonstration.”
He called the leadership of NHITE to task their members to conduct road research projects that will be beneficial to the entire country as NBRRI will be ready to sponsor such work 100 percent after vetting its worthiness to the society.
