CHAPTER ONE
1.0              INTRODUCTION
1.1              Background to the Study
The Construction industry in Nigeria, although generally accepted as very active, is relatively small contributing only about 1.8% to 3% to the Nigeria‟s Gross Domestic Product (NBS, 2013). The industry provides employment opportunity to teeming millions of the country‟s workforce and produce wide variety of products ranging from housing; public facilities such as hospitals, schools, offices and other institutional buildings etc. in addition to other infrastructural, industrial and engineering fabrications. Massive demand for buildings and housing, in particular, across all sectors of the economy and the refocusing by the government on infrastructural development are some of the factors attributed to the growth in the construction and property sector. In recent years, there has been an increasing emphasis on the housing subsector by different tiers of government to ensuring adequate provision of decent houses to the teeming population, yet the adequate provision of this basic need is becoming more challenging to the construction industry. It is estimated that Nigeria‟s housing deficit falls around 18-20million Housing Units (HU) with the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, alone having close to 3 million HU deficits (FMLHUD, 2006). The reaction of the construction industry to this finding is of mix feeling. The industry view it as an opportunity for a brighter feature for, at least, the housing subsector and also as a challenge for the industry to brace up, by equipping itself, for the handling of not only this present demand but also feature demands for more houses in the country.
The housing subsector accounts for virtually 30-40% of the construction industry‟s performance at the moment. However, studies on the performance of the industry have continued to point to the negative in terms of general performance of the industry(Odusamiet al., 2010; Dantata..