In this interview, the Principal Partner, Oasis Surveys Limited and Chairman, Nigerian Institution of Surveyors, Lagos branch, OLUGBENGA ALARA, argues that surveyors need to be consulted when individuals or organisations want to buy land, house and get land title. He also said that without finance, housing delivery would remain a mirage

How will you assess the performance of surveyors in Nigeria today, what areas have them made mark in the society?

Surveying is a serious profession and the Institution as a highly disciplined organization has been the contribution to the development of Nigeria as a country.

Tell me the areas that surveyors are not making things happening? Look at the airports, the seaports, stadia, border demarcations, and the general environment. Without surveyors, no nation can get its environment organised. So, I can say without fear of contradiction that in all facets of our national endeavours, surveyors are doing well.

Besides, if you look at sectoral usage of survey, like agriculture, where we do cultivation inventory, river dams and irrigation, and soil study, to forestry, political administration that involves boundary demarcation, and transport and aviation among others, the scope of our work and contribution stand out and that is how it is all over the world.

The housing industry has been facing myriads of challenges. What are the concrete strategies to address such challenges?

Well, professionally speaking, we are not directly involved in housing delivery, but rather, service provider and advisor. We are involved in mapping out of plots, open space and all the rest. But we are also not unmindful of the fact that surveyors also involved in “As Built” survey to confirm that what was eventually put up is in conformity with what survey plan recommended and if there are certain reasons that alteration was made, we must have an input.

Again, housing delivery should be a multi-faceted approach, where every professional body in the built environment contributes. Also, the issue of funding is there because without finance, housing delivery would remain a mirage.

Land documentation/administration in Lagos has continued to be a major headache for prospective homeowners Lagos. How do think it should be handled?
This should involve a great input from the surveyors. As I said earlier, surveyors in Lagos have been robbing minds with the Surveyor-General on how to fast track the processing of land documentation and the response is positive.

What has been the main goal of your administration?

We are planning the establishment of “Young Surveyors’ Leadership mentoring Initiative” that would involve coaching and internship programme.

Under the programme, we will teach them about strategies, virtues and values of leadership to produce quality leaders for the institution and for the country at large.

Again, what we have done when we got to office was the repositioning of our office environment. Besides, we had put in place, what one can described as new perspective of Lagos NIS. This is KREATE, an acronym for Knowledge, Relationship, Empowerment, Asset Creation, Technology and Efficiency.

We believe that knowledge in the foundation for every serious professional, while healthy relationship is also germane, especially, among other professionals. As surveyors, we need equipment that would make us to perform to excellently well and in the process, create wealth. With wealth creation, we would be able to get the best of technologies and thereby get efficient in our service delivery.

Followed is the need for our members to render good services with professionalism, integrity and commitment.

In your AGM concluded recently, the institution listed the challenges confronting Lagos as a mega city. What do you intends to do as a body to assist the state government?

In our last annual general meeting (AGM), we embarked on sensitisation programmes, by making road show to Egbeda, Idimu, and Akowonjo. The purpose of awareness programme is to let people both land owners, would-be landlord and other stakeholders have the idea of what requires of them in land administration. Essentially, we made them to understand the need to consult surveyors when they want to buy land or house and how to get land title, which is very important and where many people are having problems.

On our collaboration with Lagos government on the megacity, well, first, we need to know that the most developed parts of the world are best surveyed, everything accurately measured. Dimension of rivers, their depth, the hills-the topography and the entire environment well understood.

So, Lagos as a mega city requires a lot of contribution from surveyors. If surveyors play their roles very well, megacity will be easy to deal with. Government should take surveying seriously and thank god, we are talking with the Surveyor-General of Lagos and we are receiving positive response from him.

Do you recommend a professionals’ collaboration to tackle the challenges? How will it work?

Certainly, there is a strong synergy among the various professional bodies on how to tackle the challenges associated with the megacity. The architects, engineers, planners, builders and the rest have the same vision of assisting government to meet and provide solutions to the challenges posed by the megacity. We are all working harmoniously one way or the others. The only advice is that each of the bodies should adhere to its professional roles.

What area do you think government needs to buckle up to arrest these challenges?

Cooperation and respect for professional advice. Simple. If government understands what is on ground, which I know it does, it behooves officials to get together all relevant bodies that can be of help and contributes one way or the other to deal with issue of megacity.

How will you assess the function of NIS in the overall developmental programmes in Lagos, especially issues of Omonile and residents’ allegations that your members always work with these elements to dispossess them lands. Is it true?

I told you earlier on how we have been educating the public on how they should go about their businesses, especially, on land matters. Besides, I need to say that no qualified surveyor would engage in such matter of colluding with Omo-oniles. If such report gets to us, we have ethics committee, a competent one for that matter who will investigate and recommends the appropriate sanctions.

Besides, we have just reconstituted new ethics committee in Lagos, headed by the former chairman of the association in Lagos, Hassan Elias, a well-respected surveyor.