Nasarawa targets N5bn monthly revenue from land

An oversight function, last week, led members of the Nasarawa State House of Assembly (NSHA) standing committee on lands to begin a process of legislative governance expected to strengthen the ongoing execution of computerized lands administration and management in the state.The members, comprising the chairman, Danladi Jatau (PDP, Kokona-West), and three others: Abulkarim Usman, Peter […]

An oversight function, last week, led members of the Nasarawa State House of Assembly (NSHA) standing committee on lands to begin a process of legislative governance expected to strengthen the ongoing execution of computerized lands administration and management in the state.
The members, comprising the chairman, Danladi Jatau (PDP, Kokona-West), and three others: Abulkarim Usman, Peter Mbucho, and Mohammed Sidi Bako were in Mararaba, the gateway to the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to inspect the execution of the computerized lands system called Nasarawa Geographic Information Systems (NAGIS), as well as ask questions about its desirability in terms of job and wealth creation in a state which sits at the edge of Abuja yet lacks in development.
The members first informed some of the project partners, namely: the Lands Commissioner, Sonny Agassi; the Project Manager, Alhaji Ibrahim Usman Jibril; and the General Manager of GIS Transport, Roland Klaus – of the purpose of the visit, explaining that as the arm of government responsible for the appropriation of funds for the execution of the project, they were there to follow up implementation.
The lawmakers expressed satisfaction with the execution of the engineering aspect of the job. The inspection lasted hours, taking members through details of Nasarawa Development Platform (NDP), an initiative of the partners executing the totality of the 24-month period project called NAGIS. They are Siraj Consulting Engineers, Aeroprecisa Limited, GIS Transport, and Nasarawa State Ministry of Lands and Urban Development.
Agassi gave the lawmakers the brief introduction of NAGIS, a project initiated as a replica of Abuja’s AGIS. He said the project was awarded to a consortium of firms under Siraj Consulting Engineers, with Aeroprecisa Limited, executing Digital Area Mapping (DAM), and GIS Transport providing Nasarawa Geographic Information Services; and a team of Nigeria’s leading town planners: Pragmatic Solutions Consult Nigeria, Envicons, and National Environmental Design Associates, is handling the planning of cadastral districts in what will give a detailed planning and development control to phase out the growth of slums in the state.
He said through NAGIS, the government will replicate Abuja in Nasarawa, turning the area near Abuja, down to Keffi, into a twin city to Abuja, with equal facilities that will phase out the growth of slums there. Through NAGIS, Agassi said the government will create Karu into a business district where an ambitious revenue is expected to fund development projects in the state, insisting that by the end of the two 24 months the execution of the project is expected to last, Nasarawa can boast of a revenue base where nothing less than N5 billion can be fetched monthly from the land size of 27,000 square kilometers, over and above the about N2 billion monthly the FCTA is generating on a land size of 8,000 square kilometers.
NAGIS was first awarded to JM Technologies, a firm contracted by the previous government of Aliyu Akwe Doma. The firm had about N500 million job to provide digital aerial mapping, but almost two years later, the present government inherited a badly muddled up NAGIS section in Lafia, and a generator as well as a Toyota Hilux van at a time much of the contract money was already released. The present administration unbundled the project, and re-awarded it to Siraj Consultancy Engineering, at the cost of N2.7 billion, to include two more components.  
Alhaji Jibril, the Project Manager took over explanations to the lawmakers taking their memories back to the pre-NAGIS days when the newly commissioned complex in Mararaba was an abandoned old cinema theatre. This relic was picked and remodeled into what now stands there as state-of-the-art edifice with high earned finishing and equipment to put the whole of Nasarawa’s land on the computer.
“It is like we are stepping Nasarawa into the future already. No state, not even Abuja, has this”, he told the lawmakers, saying the same team that provide Abuja’s AGIS, is providing NAGIS, with an outcome that has far surpassed the former. “It is the case of the grandson learning from his grandparent, and coming up with what far beats what he learnt from the grandparent. That is what NAGIS is”, the Project Manager said.
Daily Trust recalls that during the commissioning of the NAGIS complex by Governor Al-Makura, earlier in the year, the former FCT minister, Nasir el’Rufai, who pioneered computerized lands administration system in the country, testified that Nasarawa far surpassed FCTA in the execution of the programme. He said the facilities, scope, and commitment made the state a flagbearer in this 21st Century programme, and hailed the project partners, especially Alhaji Ibrahim Usman Jibril, George Elzoghbi and Roland Klaus, as well as Sonny Agassi, for taking Nasarawa to heights to be envied by Abuja.
Shortly after the commissioning, the complex attracted the Surveyor General of the Federation, Nigeria (SGOF), Professor Peter Nwilo and members of the Surveyors Council of Nigeria (SUCON), who ranked Nasarawa State top among the 36 states and the FCT in the implementation of lands reforms to conform with world best practices.
Professor Nwilo said the recertification aspect of the programme where the issuance of Certificates of Occupancy (CsofO) takes only 14 days, as against the previous situation where it took a lifetime to get the land title, was commended. He hailed Nasarawa for breaking record as the first state on the way to fully comply with the Survey Coordination Act 1962, as well as the standards set by the Presidential Taskforce on Lands Reform which has advocated for the aerial mapping of all lands in the country.
He directed the state Surveyor General, Surveyor Emmanuel Ibi to prepare and make available, a report of the comprehensive lands reform programme in Nasarawa, at the forthcoming Survey Coordination Meeting where he said all states of the federation will be urged to emulate Nasarawa.
Roland Klaus, General Manager of GIS Transport, who is executing the GIS component of the project, intimated the lawmakers on the state of the Ministry of Lands before the coming of Siraj, explaining that vital lands documents were at the mercy of staff, who manipulated them because of the lucrative nature of such document to corruption.
 “Now, the era of hiding files is over”, he said, taking the lawmakers through the details of the computerized system which has now put all of Nasarawa’s lands documents including CsofO, maps and all files on the computer, for digital use. Klaus talked of how the implementation of the project has also seen the fast-tracking of NAGIS at the ministry’s headquarters in Lafia. This approach has seen the capturing of data to regularize and put all of Nasarawa’s land use in a digital database, which is housed at the NAGIS Centre in Mararaba.
He said apart from the ambitious revenue the state is expecting from the execution of this programme, NAGIS gives property owners security – that they can now go to sleep, knowing that their property is secure because every property on ground in the state will be captured and assigned a number in the database at both the NAGIS complex in Mararaba, and the state ministry in Lafia.
The lawmakers took turns to express their delight with the programme. “This is fantastic. We have come and seen; we are satisfied with the implementation of the budgetary provision for this project. We have asked questions on critical areas of funding, project execution and the expected outcome,” Danladi Jatau, the House Committee leader said after the inspection.