Over the past decades, the construction project control system has struggled with some global challenge that hinders infrastructural projects’ time delivery and budget. The threat is the most common, expensive, and risky problem associated with public-private construction projects. Within this context, this study aims to analyse the significant factors that influence construction project control mechanisms in Nigeria, using infrastructural projects as a baseline. Data were collected through a questionnaire survey with 200 construction actors with project control experience. The respondents’ retort was analysed based on the procedures for Smart PLS-SEM version 3 software. The measurement model entailed formative and reflective quality assessments before the structure model was examined to identify the significant relationship among the variables. The study further deployed the importance-performance matrix analysis (IPMA) to unravel the indicators with priority to the target construct. Hence, these indicators form the basis and attention for management decisions. The results revealed that both cost overrun (COF) and time delay (TDF) factors were positive and significant predictors of the project control practices. Likewise, IPMA showed that the COF construct has more importance and performed better than the TDF. Furthermore, ‘Unstable government policies’ from the TDF and COF indicators should be prioritised by the stakeholders in construction firms in the study area. This is followed by the ‘Design changes’, culminating in the project cost overrun in the construction environment. It is therefore essential that government policies should be the one that could last longer than usual, and this would involve adequate planning and commitment from the path of the leaders in the country. Also, clients and user involvement should be taken seriously from the inception to avoid change in the design at the handover stage of the project.