Finalyear

CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Coronavirus is a new virus that has been discovered with its outbreak in Wuhan, China in December 2019. Now it has spread at a lightning speed to affect several countries on different continents of the world. According to the world health organization, WHO, this virus has reached 221 countries, areas or territories with 248,467,363 confirmed cases including 5,027,183 deaths reported to WHO as of November 2021, a total of 7,027,377,238 vaccine doses have been administered.
On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus (covid-19) a “Pandemic”. This means global disease outbreaks threatening the Wide planet. Covid-19 is an infectious disease caused by the corona virus (Colls) are a large family of viruses that causes illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as middle east respiratory syndrome (MERS-CoV) and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-(COV). A novel coronavirus (nCOV) is a new strain that has not been previously identified in humans (WHO, 2020). They are transmitted between animals and humans with possible symptoms which include fever, dry cough and shortness of breath, breathing difficulties, tiredness, sore throat or diarrhoea.
Many countries have demonstrated leadership by implementing emergency measures to prevent the spread of the infection. In this context, schools, worship centres, cinemas, museums, restaurants and construction industries were being closed and currently, public gatherings, and events have been reduced to smaller ones, travel restrictions, closure of borders and cancellation of flights in countries with a high level of contamination or exposure to the disease.
Besides the negative impact on the individual, a pandemic such as the novel coronavirus can lead to sharp shocks to Worldwide economics and societies (Maclntyrea, 2020; Shlgemuraet al., 2020). According to Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) latest interim Economic outlook (2020), “the coronavirus (COVID-19) presents the global economy with its greatest danger since the America crisis”.
Working from home (WFH) is a work arrangement in which workers do not need to work at a central place e.g, office building, warehouse or store. Many countries of the world through its leadership have adopted this method (working from home) to avoid the further spread of the virus. Working from home has various names, such as remote work, teleworking or tele-community and are used interchangeably from study to study. Nowadays, since WFH is facilitated by many tools such as virtual private networks, and online meeting software, more and more companies allow their workers to work from home. WFH can offer some benefits to both companies and workers, for instance, when workers can work, they feel more trusted and are better able to balance work and life responsibilities which can increase workers retention and make them happier and more productive. WFH is also adopted by many local companies in Nigeria industries can perform their daily tasks as usual by remotely accessing resources of companies while working from home. WFH might have different impacts on productivity, which is a big concern to do many organizations. Understanding the difference of the Covid-19 outbreak on Building construction in Nigeria when working from home and the reason behind it can help improve the management of companies and projects increase the job satisfaction of workers and make the workers more productive. WFH might have a negative impact on the building industry. For example, it would decrease the efficiency of workers’ communication which plays an important role in the overall construction.
The building construction industry plays a significant role in the nation’s economy, societal and political development. The Covid-19 pandemic had arisen into our global that had affected the construction industries. Due to this pandemic, all construction activities had stopped following the movement control order (MCO) and working from home is not practical in the building construction industries unlike other industries as most of the work is carried out on site. The covid-19 has continued to be a threat to the building industry and this would be a high impact on Nigeria’s economic growth if any major project(s) got delayed as a result of the pandemic.
One of the approaches to reduce the impact of Covid-19 in the construction industry is to identify the merging problems that the industry players are facing in this complicated situation. The information obtained would then be analyzed to develop solutions to reduce the crisis impact. Finally, critical solutions will be evaluated to get the most efficient solution for these issues.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
The outbreak of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has impacted the world’s economy of which Nigeria construction industries are not left out. The impact is felt by both companies and workers alike. This impact has necessitated the study on how working from home (WFH) and on-site due to the outbreak of coronavirus, has impacted on building construction industries in Nigeria and in determining the benefits available to the construction sector. This study also involves how contractors will grab this corona era as an opportunity for a better project(s) delivery, thereby ensuring that the clients get good value for their money at the end of the projects.
1.3 AIM AND OBJECTIVES
The study aims to investigate the effect of COVID-19 on the building construction industries in Nigeria to proffer solutions to the negative impacts of the pandemic to ensure effective mitigations of the resultant effects in the construction industry.