Prospects for Improving Building Maintenance Management in Nigerian Public Universities: A Case Study of Nnamdi Azikiwe University

Abstract

Buildings are highly resourceful in the effective operation of tertiary institutions. It is imperative that these assets should be given good maintenance attention for effective performance. Public institutions have always been faced with ineffective maintenance of buildings due to bureaucratic constraints and poor maintenance culture. This study is aimed at establishing prospects for improving maintenance management and performance of buildings in public universities in Nigeria, using Nnamdi Azikiwe University as a case study. The study adopted a survey research approach using a structured questionnaire. A total of 148 responses were gotten from the Works and Services Department and Heads of academic departments out of 203 distributed questionnaires, being a 72.9% response rate. The questionnaire was analyzed using descriptive statistics technique. The study variables were examines using mean, with an acceptance benchmark of 3 and above. This implies that any issue that has the mean of the responses to be 3.0 will be regarded as “agreed”, while those whose mean of their responses are less than 3.0 will be regarded as “disagreed”. Mean and standard deviation of each item were determined, and ranking were then assigned to them. From the research findings, it is evident that there are statistically significant prospects for improving on the poor state of building maintenance management in the study area. The study therefore recommends that adoption and deployment of computerized maintenance management system that would handle all aspects of users’ reporting and feedback, scheduling and coordination of activities; intensive training and retraining program for the maintenance personnel, orientation programs for building users on healthy maintenance culture and regular building condition survey should be incorporated as prospects for improving building maintenance management in the study area.