Contract Management and Disputes Avoidance in the Nigerian Construction Industry

Description

ABSTRACT

Contract Management and Disputes Avoidance in the Nigerian Construction Industry

Doyinsola Kazeem* and Ibrahim Haroon**

The construction industry in Nigeria has been growing at an incredibly fast level. Albeit a major impediment to growth and hitch-free success in the Nigerian construction industry is the rising number of disputes. Practitioners struggle with avoiding disputes at the three stages of construction: pre-contract, contract and post contract. There are proven toolkits that can assist with dispute avoidance in the construction industry in Nigeria. In this paper, the authors focus on mechanisms and toolkits that practitioners can adopt to avoid disputes in the Nigerian construction industry. The major constituents of these toolkits are human management and technological processes inclined.

Keywords: Construction, Disputes, Management, Toolkits.

INTRODUCTION
Disputes are common phenomena in construction contracts in Nigeria. These disputes are triggered by different factors, and they exist on different levels. Research reveals that there is no accurate data as yet, repository, or metric for determining the amount and/or estimation of these disputes in Nigeria.₁ Construction disputes may be inter-party, with third parties, or both. These disputes stem from acts or omissions during the pre-contractual, contractual, and post-contractual stages.

Parties to construction contracts may lessen the impact of disputes on their relationship or avoid disputes altogether by ensuring a proper contract management culture. For dispute management or avoidance in the Nigerian construction industry, parties to construction contracts must understand and signify all aspects of contract management, including records keeping, document management, and careful negotiation and drafting of contracts. Contract management is germane and it permeates all aspects of the contracts. The need for parties to be aware of and address Contract management mechanisms beforehand and by settled terms cannot be overemphasized, especially in Nigeria, where no legislation addresses contract management in the construction industry.

Despite the large and rising number of disputes in the Nigerian construction industry, few records exist of these disputes and how they are resolved. This lack of data is a problem on its own. The lack of data is due to, among others, the confidential nature of construction contracts and the private and/or amicable settlement mechanisms that are usually resorted to.

* Lawyer at African Finance Corporation and a postgraduate student of Construction Engineering at the University of Cambridge.
** Associate at G. Elias.

1. Babatunde Fagbohunle SAN, Ngo-Martins Okonmah, ‘The Construction Disputes Law Review: Nigeria’, accessed 2 December 2022.

THE GRAVITAS REVIEW OF BUSINESS & PROPERTY LAW Vol.13 No.4