In this interview with STEPHEN AGWAIBOR, President of the Architects Registration Council of Nigeria, Sir Oladipupo Ajayi, speaks on Nigeria’s housing challenge and plans to upgrade departments of architecture to faculties in universities across the country.just completed your tenure as ARCON President. What major strides have been made since you assumed office?
I can tell you today that not less than 37 universities have been accredited in Nigeria and abroad. The major thing we did was to provide a home for architects. We had no home for architects before I came on board. We swung into action to retrieve our lands with help from the Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola. Today, we have laid the foundation for architects’ home in Abuja.
They developed a benchmark for the proposed departments with programmes submitted to the National Universities Commission for implementation by universities. The people who created these cities are versed in the knowledge of landscape architecture, urban design, and so on. So we came together and found about 15 courses that are offered abroad that can also be offered here in Nigeria.