Bandits: Nigeria poorly mapped, using obsolete 1965 mapping, says NIS

ppp[The Nigerian Institution of Surveyors has proposed a new national mapping to address insecurity.

NIS president Matthew Ibitoye made the call at the fourth NIS Lasis Ali Memorial Lecture on Tuesday in Ibadan.

Mr Ibitoye said the maps in the country done in 1965 were obsolete and could not meet the present realities. He urged the federal government to collaborate with NIS to carry out new mapping of the country, as this step would help security agents tackle insecurity.

Mr Ibitoye said urgent action must be taken to produce new maps with modern technology for the country to win the war against insurgency, banditry, kidnapping and other crimes.

He added, “The best-mapped country is the best-developed country. We have been advocating that Nigeria should be mapped with the latest technology for long. The map we are using in Nigeria was produced in 1965 when many of us had not been born.

“This means we are giving wrong data to the people, and our communities are expanding every day. We have what it takes as professionals to track some of these insurgents. The technology in the surveying profession has gone beyond using the old physical approach to curb banditry.

“We are ready to partner with government in the war against insurgency.”

The NIS chief decried the lack of interest in surveying by prospecting students in Nigeria, saying graduates were not interested in being lecturers in surveying departments of Nigerian universities because of poor remuneration.

“We have more than 10 universities offering surveying apart from polytechnics in states within South-West Nigeria, but some of them don’t have more than two to four lecturers in the whole department.

“We are working to see that we encourage our surveyors, especially those with higher academic qualifications, to go into lecturing so that we can produce more qualified surveyors for the country,” he said.

The guest lecturer, Lanre Agoro, urged surveyors to sensitise the public to the dangers inherent in outright selling their landed property.

Mr Agoro, a legal practitioner, added that surveyors in countries such as France and other developed nations always encouraged leasing properties for economic development and securing the future of the unborn generations.

Mr Agoro decried the high taste for imported products at the detriment of locally produced products by Nigerians, saying it had contributed to the devaluation of the naira.

NIS chairman in Oyo, Waheed Lamidi, urged citizens to refrain from accepting back-dated survey plans from quacks in the surveying profession.

Mr Lamidi said the qualified members of NIS could be recognised through their unique registration number and seal. He said the lecture was organised in honour of an icon, Lasis Ali, who distinguished himself as one of the past fellows of NIS and president, who upheld high ethical standards of the profession.