Lagos State Governmet has assured residents that it would deploy technology to drive the process of land registration and management in the State.
The State Government explained that the move was necessary to deliver world class services to the people of Lagos.
Speaking at the first Stakeholders’ Forum, the Permanent Secretary/Surveyor-General of Lagos State, Mr. Olutomi Sangowawa said that the maiden edition of the forum convened by the office of the State Surveyor-General was to form a partnership that would strengthen the ties between government, property owners and stakeholders in the construction sector.
According to him; “This initiative will foster a more cordial relationship among stakeholders, investors and regulators, just as it defines, in clear terms, the requirements for adopting 21st Century techniques for optimised geospatial applications and service delivery.”
He said that the Office of the State Surveyor-General decided to engage stakeholders to discuss issues resulting from the rapid growth of the urban population in Lagos State and how the development of geospatial information could address the identified problems.
The state Surveyor General gave assurance that; “The professional team of the Office of the Surveyor-General of Lagos State will continually leverage geospatial information to deliver prompt, professional, timely and excellent services to all stakeholders in accordance with our mandate on the issuance of land information certificates, charting information, certified survey plans and preparation of composite plans.”
He however urged all stakeholders to sustain the tradition as gave assurance that the forum would design the roadmap for continuous development of the built sector, especially in Lagos State and, by extension Nigeria.
Attracting investors
A Lagos based lawyer, Ebun –Olu Adegboruwa, SAN also pointed out that embracing ease and convinience in processing title documents for landed property and the improved land administration will open the State for economic growth and attract several investors.
He noted that the stakeholders summit with the theme “Emerging Technologies for Optimised Geospatial Application and Service Delivery in the 21st Century,” is apt and in consonance with present reality in the country.
Adegboruwa said; “’The process of bearing files from one stage to the other in the process of approval, the process of rendering advice is cumbersome not only to the judiciary, even in survey departments for us to do certain things.
‘’The people we are following, western countries have moved ahead. The problem we have with the judiciary is our conservative approach of governance to things and ways of doing things, the case I cited earlier lingered from 1997 to 2020, almost thirty years and yet the person is still in possession of the property wrongly acquired.
‘’It cuts across all areas of our life and the only solution to it is to deploy technology in tackling office management thereby removing human intervention in governance to considerable level.’’
He also urged the Nigerian government to devolve powers to the state, local government and grassroots level, as part of measures to check corruption among the Nigerian elite.
Lateefah Ibrahim
