Developing an Original Theory of Building Failure Prevention Through Regulatory Governance Reform in Sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from Nigeria

Building failures in Nigeria and comparable sub-Saharan African countries represent a systemic governance failure rather than isolated technical incidents, and developing an original theory of building failure prevention through regulatory governance reform provides both scholarly and policy contributions. This study develops an original Theory of Building Failure Prevention Through Regulatory Governance (TBFPRG), drawing on regulatory theory, new institutional economics, and comparative public administration to explain building failure as a product of regulatory governance configurations, and to specify the governance reforms necessary for prevention. The theory is constructed through systematic comparison of building regulatory governance structures, enforcement capacity, and building failure incidence across 12 sub-Saharan African countries using original data collected through structured government questionnaires and professional surveys. Nigeria's experience provides the primary case evidence, with data from all six geopolitical zones collected over 3 years of fieldwork including 90 structured interviews with building control officials, 60 professional informants, and analysis of 450 building failure investigation reports. The TBFPRG identifies three governance failure typologies (regulatory capture, capacity deficit governance, and legitimacy deficit governance) and specifies the causal pathways through which each typology produces elevated building failure rates. Configurational comparative analysis (Qualitative Comparative Analysis with fuzzy sets) confirms the typology-failure rate relationships across the 12-country dataset. Reform pathway models are specified for each failure typology. The theory constitutes the first comparative theoretical account of building regulatory governance failure and prevention in sub-Saharan Africa, with direct application to ongoing building code and regulatory reform processes in Nigeria.

Keywords: building failure prevention, regulatory governance, sub-Saharan Africa, building control, institutional theory