Imported User:
The Nigerian Institute of Quantity Surveyors (NIQS) has called on the federal government to speed up the processes of implementing the Land Reform Agenda, stressing that it is the basis of achieving an effective land administration in the country.
This is as the institute has declared that statistics indicate that about 97 percent of Nigeria’s land is rural and considered dead capital due to lack of registrable instrument that can give such land any economic value.
Speaking at a press conference yesterday in Abuja, the President of the institute, Surveyor Yakubu Maikano, said, improving the economic value of these rural lands can only be ensured through the land reform programme by which registrable instruments can be provided for the lands, which would in turn check poverty.
He noted that the institute has devised measures to assist the Presidential Technical Committee on the implementation process of the land reform agenda which he said is part of the issues to be deliberated upon during the forthcoming 46th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the institute to be held on Monday, in Calabar, Cross River state.
According to him, “the primary objective of the land reform programme of the federal government is opening up a land market in Nigeria. The development of land as an economic capital can be used to drive the economy and eradicate poverty. The land reform is a major item on the agenda of the federal government and the Presidential Technical committee on it is set to start pilot implementation. Our consideration of it at our AGM in Calabar is timely because surveying and mapping are the bedrock of every development.
Maikano stated that the federal government through the presidential committee intends to install about 50 continuously operating reference stations which form the Nigerian network (NIGNET), strategically spread all over the country.
While lamenting the negligence of the surveyor departments in the state governments, he however, identified funding and inadequate awareness of the institute as the major constraints of the institute.
Add new comment