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DEVELOPING A WEB-DRIVEN LAND INFORMATION AND MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FOR NIGERIA: Possibilities, Problems and Lesson from South Eastern Region of Nigeria
JOSHUA UZOMA OGBONNA

Last modified: 2016-04-28

Abstract


With the advancement of virtual platforms driven by information technology, the adaptation of Digital Land Management System (DLMS) by land-based practitioners has become an indispensible planning tool for sustainable land use management. An examination of corrupt sectors in Nigeria even at an ephemeral level, exposes Land Management System (LMS) as being amongst the worst hit because of the unholy relationship(s) existing between the ‘knowing expert’ and ‘not knowing’ clients. Leading to slow, poor quality and faulty land related services; Ogbonna (2015). Given the absence of a transparent system, bribery and other irregularities are common. People in the administration (the knowing experts) who are responsible for creating and maintaining land records often prepare incorrect records intentionally, and land owners (not knowing clients) are forced to pay bribes (‘egunje’) to officials to get the records approved; Ogbonna (2015). Most times, land ministry officials and surveyors are often too familiar with land touts; cases abound where people pay bribes to officials and/or surveyors to get land ownership transferred or recorded illegally in their names, leaving the real owner(s) running from ‘pillar to post’ to get justice. This paper envision a system that will infuse some level of transparency and accountability into this sector and curb the rampant corruption by reducing the rate of ‘man-machine’ interface at some levels in the system. Through developing a national framework that lays down land management procedures taking into considerations the geo-political and cultural disposition of Nigeria as key elements to the development of a web-driven land information and management system. This paper designs a platform for National Land Information and Management (NLIM) Portal; which will oversee the six Regional Land Information and Management (RLIM) centres designed along the six geo-political regions of Nigeria. This will lead to a high data synergy (data interoperability) amongst the states within the regions. This paper examines the possibilities and problems using lessons from Abia Geographic Information System (ABGIS) in the South Eastern Region of Nigeria. This paper found out that at the short run it is expensive to set up a functional National e-Platform that will house all land data/information on a web driven relational format. But will create access to land data/information anytime and anywhere without the presence of touts to citizens and create huge revenue to government.


Keywords


digital land management systems; national land information and management; geographic information system; national e-Platform; Abia geographic information system

References


Gerhard Larsson (1991) Land Registration in Developing Countries - Summary by Thomas Rox based on the presentation at the ZENIT symposium “Property Transaction in the Digital Age” in Mülheim on September 30th 2010

Ing. Jens Riecken,(2010)The Property Cadastre in the Context of Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI) Ministry of the Interior NRW, Düsseldorf

Ing. E. h. and Dietmar Grünreich (2012): Cadastre and Land Registration in Europe. Head of Federal Agency of Cartography and Geodesy, Frankfurt

Klaus Petermann, and Robert Mödl (2012), Reliability in a Digital World – Electronic Procedures between Land Registers and Civil Law Notaries Ministry of Justice in North-Rhine Westphalia and Federal Chamber of German Notaries

Ogbonna,J.U. (2014) Geographic Information Systems – Principles, Techniques and Applications; With elaborate GIS Dictionary. Nigeria: Vicksons Publishers.

Ogbonna, J. U. (2015): Digitization of Land Title Registration: Challenges and Prospects. Invited paper by the Institution of Estate Management and Valuers (NIESV) of Nigeria on 2015 Mandatory Countnuing Professional. Development (MCDP)


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