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Home Features IndustryINFLUENCERS

Vivian Halliday on Why Nigeria’s ₦141.3tr Real Estate Boom Must Put Fire Safety before Profits

Meet Engineer Vivian Halliday, a NEBOSH-certified Fire Risk Assessor and Emergency Planner

by Joan Aimuengheuwa
August 13, 2025
in IndustryINFLUENCERS
0
Engineer Vivian Halliday | Emergency Planner
Engineer Vivian Halliday, a NEBOSH-certified Fire Risk Assessor and Emergency Planner

Engineer Vivian Halliday, a NEBOSH-certified Fire Risk Assessor and Emergency Planner

UBA
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In Nigeria, skyscrapers rise like promises, but so do the flames that usually follow. A country whose real estate sector was valued at N41.3 trillion in 2024 and projected to hit $2.25–$2.6 trillion by the end of 2025 should not be losing over N67.1 billion annually to fire incidents.

But then, between January and June 2025, Lagos alone recorded 922 fire outbreaks, 10 building collapses, and 62 fatalities. Nationwide, the Federal Fire Service reported more than 100 deaths in 2024 despite saving N1.94 trillion worth of assets.

These tragedies are not random acts of misfortune, they are engineered by poor design, outdated materials, ignored safety codes, and a culture of “fix it later.”

This is the landscape where Engineer Vivian Halliday, a NEBOSH-certified Fire Risk Assessor and Emergency Planner, steps in.

With over seven years’ practical experience spanning construction, energy, nuclear, oil and gas sectors, Halliday is part of an elite class of safety professionals bolstering Nigeria’s infrastructure resilience. Her résumé stretches from LNG operations in Nigeria to high-speed rail projects worth £106 billion in the UK.

“Market fires and building blazes are not acts of fate; they are the direct result of poor design, outdated materials, ignored safety codes, and a culture of fixing problems after they’ve already caused damage,” Vivian Halliday told Techeconomy in an exclusive interview. “If we integrate fire safety at the design stage, we save lives and protect investments.”

Vivian Halliday’s career spans continents. She has worked on liquefied natural gas operations in Nigeria, overseen safety in high-risk oil and gas projects, and contributed to the UK’s £106 billion high-speed rail programme.

Her credentials include not only NEBOSH certification, a global benchmark for health and safety expertise, but also OPITO, ISO 9001, and a Master’s degree in Emergency Management from Coventry University.

However, for all her international exposure, Halliday insists Nigeria’s fire safety problem is homegrown. She describes a construction culture in which safety is usually treated as an afterthought, squeezed into budgets only after aesthetics, cost-cutting, and profit margins have been prioritised.

“The National Building Code, NFPA standards, ISO protocols, these aren’t optional checklists,” she said. “They should be embedded from concept to handover, not tacked on just before opening day.”

Her warning comes at a time when Nigeria’s construction industry is projected to hit N25.72 trillion by the end of 2025, growing at an annual rate of 8%. But Halliday sees the boom as a double-edged sword: rapid growth creates more opportunities for unsafe practices to slip through the cracks.

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She advocates for what she calls “code-led design and lifecycle fire safety management”, an approach that goes beyond passing inspections to ensure that fire prevention, detection, and suppression systems are built into a structure’s DNA.

In her view, this includes fire-resistant structural materials, intelligent alarm systems that guide evacuation, multiple protected escape routes, and smoke control systems that keep breathing conditions viable during emergencies.

One of her biggest concerns is the over-reliance on substandard products in critical safety systems.

“A fire door is not just a door painted red,” she said. “It must be third-party certified, properly installed, and tested. The same goes for sprinklers, cabling, and detection systems. If a single link in that chain is weak, the entire protection strategy fails.”

In her approach, she calls for strict commissioning protocols where every pump, riser, alarm, and evacuation plan is tested before a building is handed over.

Vivian Halliday pushes for integration with fire services during the planning phase, ensuring access routes for emergency responders are clear and usable and she champions ongoing audits, arguing that a building’s safety is only as good as its last inspection.

Halliday also sees opportunity in all this. With 78% of senior HSE roles in Nigeria now requiring NEBOSH certification and offshore safety jobs paying as much as $500 a day, she believes the country could position itself as a hub for world-class safety professionals.

By investing in training, she says, developers can not only protect lives but also enhance their brand reputation and reduce long-term insurance and liability costs.

Still, she knows this vision requires a mindset shift.

“We cannot keep treating fire incidents as unpredictable disasters,” the engineer said. “They are predictable, preventable events. Every ignition source, every flammable material, every failed system, all of these can be addressed during the design stage. That’s where the true cost savings are.”

To Nigeria’s property developers, architects, and urban planners, Halliday says the nation’s real estate boom will either be remembered for its architectural triumphs or for the tragedies it failed to prevent.

“Fire safety is not a luxury. It is core infrastructure. It keeps people alive, protects capital, and keeps cities open for business,” she said. “If we get it wrong, no amount of profit will undo the loss.” – Vivian Halliday.

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Tags: Emergency PlannerFire Risk AssessorFire safetyNEBOSH-certifiedVivian Halliday
Joan Aimuengheuwa

Joan Aimuengheuwa

Joan thrives at helping individuals and businesses scale via storytelling...

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