Proceedings of The International Academic Conference on Sustainable Development Vol. 2 No.5 November, 13-14 2014- B.U.K. Lecture Hall, Old Site, B.U.K. Road, Kano. PERCEPTIONS’ ABOUT VARIATION ORDER ON PUBLIC BUILDING PROJECTS IN NORTH EASTERN, NIGERIA. Abdulkadir, S., Lawan, Z. A. and Gidado, U. M. Department of Building, A.T.B.U. Bauchi. ABSTRACT. Variation order is regarded as the most occurrence issue and often resulted to conflicts, delay and disputes among the parties to contracts. The study sought the perceptions of professionals on the significant factors causing variation order and their attached impacts. A preliminary survey were carried out on the identified causes in the literature and the respondents asked to ticks the most common occurrence ones within the study area, these make the basis of questionnaire used. A total of one hundred questionnaires administered to various respondents and sixty two retrieved. A mean scored was adopted and used in analyzing the data. The study reported that, change in specification (MS = 23.28), change in design (MS = 19.98), defectives workmanship (MS = 17.46) and change in government regulation (MS = 19.44) are the most significant factors causing variation order in the study area. It conclude that, consultant and client related changes with (MS =117.90 and 115.62) are the main origin of variation order and recommend that, prior to design stage, the consultants’ should ascertained the full details requirement of client on design and specification issues and also the client should employ only the competent and experience consultant to execute the works. Keyword: Variation order, perceptions, professionals, mean score (MS) and impacts INTRODUCTION Perception as defined in Merriam- Webster dictionary is the way of noticing or understanding something using one of your senses or the way of thinking about or reading something. In addition, perception has been defined as a process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environment (quizlet.com). Weaver 1981 defines perception as the way human beings give meaning to things base on the information gathered. As cited in (Dada, 2007). Therefore, inline of this, the study sought the perception of professionals on the significant factors causing variation order with their attached effects so as to proper a means of minimizing such occurrence in the study area. A variation as defined by Designing Buildings Wiki is a change to the scope of works in a construction contract in the form of an addition, substitution or omission from the original scope of works. Variations order is means of allowing changes or modification to be incorporated into an earlier agreement made by both parties either in terms of volume or nature of a task to be carried out. These changes however occur after the award of the initial contract or after work might have commenced at the construction sites. These changes may be due to various reasons such as a change of scope, schedule, costs and methods (Towhid et al., 2012). In almost every project, the variation issue arises these might be probably due to the nature of the complication of the projects or the involvement of many professionals. This is evident as in the research of Mohammed, (2001) who reported that, the complexity of the construction industry due to different stakeholders' involvement makes it differ from another industry. This complexity gives rise mostly to an unwanted situation like variations with their attached effects, and the more variation orders on a project, the greater the likelihood that they become time-consuming and costly in construction projects. Cited in (Sunday,2010) .The nature of a variation order can be determined by referring to both the reasons for their occurrence and subsequent effects (Mohammad et al., 2010). Arain and Pheng (2005) distinguished two types of variation orders namely: Beneficial and Detrimental variation order. The beneficial variation order is one issued to