The Institute currently occupies an area of about 1.5 acres of land with four main building blocks i.e Administration, Laboratory, Industrial Pilot Unit and the Herbarium. The administration block is inadequate to accommodate offices for the senior staff. Currently, there is sharing of offices among senior staff. The laboratory was last renovated and equipped in 1996. Currently, most of the equipments are broken down and consumables have not been restocked.
Some of the equipments that have broken down include; Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Spectrophotometer, high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), Gas Chromatography (GC). The infra-red spectrophotometer and the UV-visible spectrophotometer require servicing and maintenance. The laboratory has not been able to acquire equipments of the latest technology. The animal house for the pharmacology section currently does not exist. The animals are currently housed inside the laboratory. In addition, the storage space for chemicals and equipments is not adequate.
The instruments for pharmacology analysis have broken down and some are outdated. The pilot industrial chemistry unit has old extraction equipments that are not operational. This cannot measure up to the current technologies in research and development. The current herbarium facilities in the unit are inadequate to match the requirements of a modern herbarium.
It is also important to note that the laboratory needs to be located away from the city centre ton an isolated area due to its nature of its activities that may endanger human life in case of an accident(chemicals and gases may escape). The current location also makes it difficult for NCRI to have enough space to engage in own conservation and bio diversity activities.