By Temilade Aruya
The attendant issues and problems associated with land acquisition and ownership including land registration, obtaining title documents for landed properties such as certificate of occupancy and the likes is fast becoming a thing of the past in Lagos as the State’s Lands Bureau is now better reposition to manage land resources in the State.
The State is currently upgrading and redesigning the layout and business process within the Land Registry, in order to maintain the highest level of security and integrity of the title documents. Also with the introduction of the Electronic Documentation and Survey Plans System (EDMS), which scans and archives Land Documents and Survey Plans into a searchable and interlinked data, Land Registration becomes smoother and more efficient.
To further enhance the system, Lagos State Governor, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode who is passionate about prompt and efficient service delivery, wants obtaining of Certificate of Occupancy to be with ease and as such has signed cumulatively, since inception of his administration, a total of 4,445 Electronic Certificate of Occupancy. The State is fully implementing the “Lagos State Land Registration Law 2015” for instance, in line with the provisions of the extant law with respect to the lost or destruction of Certificate of Occupancy, has replaced, the Memorandum of Loss with “Extract of Title Document”.
Similarly, on the 15h of August 2016, the State signed into Law the “Lagos State Property Protection Law”, followed by the creation of the Special Task Force with the aim of putting a stop to the nefarious activities of Land Grabbers (Omo onile) who made life impossible for land owners and prospective land owners.
To complement this effort and further stem down the unwholesome activities of Land Grabbers in the State, the Government also commenced the implementation of Section 89-92 of the Lagos State Land Registration Law which aims at registering all authorized family land representatives in Lagos who have the exclusive rights to dealing on family land. This, of course will go a long way in helping prospective buyers to verify the relevant family representatives at the Land Registry to discover the person authorized to execute relevant Deeds and invariably enhance the security of Title in the registry.
Furthermore, the Lagos State Government understands the importance of all Stakeholders in land administration and management and so started the Quarterly Interactive Forum which affords all Stakeholders the opportunity to interface with the State’s Lands Team consisting of the Lands Bureau, New Towns Development Authority and the Office of the State Surveyor-General to chart a course to further enhance the reforms embarked on and continuously ease the process of Land Administration in the state.
In the spirit of the Ambode administration all inclusiveness policy, the State Government has continued to carry along stakeholders, promptly informing and educating them on changes, reforms and opportunities within the sector another one of such innovativeness is the creation of the Dedicated Help-Desk for abandoned/uncompleted applications and complaints via the Citizen Gate Portal. It is an integral web and mobile-based platform through which Lagosians can lodge feedbacks with the Lands Bureau on various service provided, receive faster responses on service and interact with Government via web www.citizensgate.lagosstte.gov.ng and download mobile App from Google Play Store and Apple Store.
In response to the demands of a 21st Century Mega City like Lagos, the state Government in line with its determination and commitment towards efficient Land administration and management and the drive to rapid urbanization, has put in place these effective and dynamic reforms to reposition Land Resources for the benefit of Lagosians. Therefore, Land Registration in the State stands and ranks the best in the country especially in the discharge of its duties and responsibilities.
To further eliminate challenges associated with redundant data, increase accuracy, reduce manual entry errors and streamline the entire workflow process in the Bureau, the Ambode led administration has approved the deployment of Integrated Land Administration and Automation System which includes the Geographical Information System to fully sync end to end Land Administration platform for sustainable and automated environment to effectively reduce silos of information that exist across Departments and Agency with the Bureau.
The Integrated Land Administration and Automation System is a suite of technology modules that can conduct rapid inventory of land rights, automate/manage land records, create/maintain integrated geographical data accurately and fairly value any property.
In view of the importance of Land to everyone and the need to continuously ease the process of Land Administration for better service delivery in the State, it becomes expedient to harness the Land Resources for the good of the state and ultimately the benefit of the people, on completion the project (Integrated Land Administration and Automation System) will revolutionize Land Administration in the State and the Nation.
Similarly, the Lands Bureau ,being the second highest revenue earner in the State with a gross earning of #2O, 773,862,768.47 (Twenty Billon, Seven Hundred and Seventy-Three Million, Eight Hundred Sixty Two Thousand, Seven Hundred and Sixty Eight naira, Forty-Seven Kobo) in the year 2016 with the revenue performance for the year exceeding the Bureau’s budget for the period by 45% due to transaction on the sales of land for industrial development, it becomes even more expedient that concrete steps be taken towards the efficient and sustainable Land management and administration.
Registering Property amongst other factors is one of the main concerns for business reforms and Lagos State being the commercial nerve center understands and appreciates the importance of impactful reforms that would ease the registration of property for private investors desirous of acquiring land for development purposes in the state.
Indeed, with Government’s commitment to increasing the GDP of the State and actualizing a seamless means of doing business in the State by giving access and ease of land acquisition to people, it is believed that measures to further upgrade service delivery through better strategic procedures and smarter use of information technology will no doubt enhance revenue performance and service delivery and at the same time improve the rating of the state and the country in general on the ease of doing business.
Aruya is of the Ministry of Information & Strategy, Alausa, Ikeja.
