An investigation into the use of ICT in the Nigerian construction industry

SUMMARY: The 2002 global ICT rankings by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) ranked Nigeria 27 th among 51 African countries and 153 rd among 178 countries in the world. It was against this background that the paper investigated the state of ICT in the Nigerian construction industry to highlight the level of ICT penetration, its impact in the industry and the constraints to its adoption. The study identified the factors significantly impacting the level of ICT use, grouping them into those internal to the industry and those external to it. A total of 136 respondents to a questionnaire survey, comprising, contractors, consultants and academic researchers, provided empirical data for the analysis. The results showed that some internal factors, i.e., the type of business (whether contracting, consulting or academic), chief executive officers (CEOs)/senior managers’ perception of the benefits of ICT and the years of computer literacy of the CEOs/senior managers were significantly correlated with the level of ICT use in the industry. However, none of the external factors were significantly correlated with the level of ICT use. The main uses of ICT in the industry are word processing, Internet communications, costing and work scheduling. The top five constraints to the use of ICT are insufficient/irregular power supply, high cost of ICT software and hardware, low job order for firms, fear of virus attacks and high rate of obsolescence of ICT software and hardware. A comparison with the results of similar studies in some industrialised and newly industrialised countries indicated that the proportion of firms using the computer is quite high for a developing like Nigeria. It also highlighted the large gap in access to electricity and other communications infrastructure between developed and developing countries.