By Okwy Iroegbu-Chikezie
The Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV) has held a symposium to celebrate its 50th anniversary in Lagos.
Representing the Chairman of the occasion, Adetola Shote, Elder Oghenakpobo Idudu, one of the early members and Eighth Chairman of the branch, told the story of the early years of the branch.
Idudu, who is also a former President of the institution, described the early years as “a golden era” which came with a high sense of pride for the real estate surveying and valuation profession, adding that the happiest thing for him now is that “there are now, many estate surveyors and valuers today who are managing housing, a basic need of mankind”.
He called on the government to establish and maintain a vibrant mortgage system in the economy as funding remains the biggest challenge of people desiring decent homes and seeking services of real estate surveyors and valuers.
“We now seek to return to the golden era but we have not been able to do so, because of politicians who have not given us a dependable mortgage system. Many people cannot buy housing because they have no means; we do not have a vibrant mortgage industry.
“We had our member then, Akinsanya who was working in the bank. He had come up with the idea of the government using unclaimed dividend as seed money for the mortgage industry to take off and the money would be paid back gradually as beneficiaries are paying back, but that idea was not adopted by the government. We need money to have a vibrant mortgage industry. If the polical will was there, we would have been able to push this forward and making housing cheaper and more accessible,” Idudu said.
He called on the branch members to focus on making their services cheaper so that even the poor can access their professional input in the housing sector.
“As we celebrate, we should make our services cheaper and make the poor have access to our services,” Idudu advised.
Earlier in his welcome address, the President of NIESV, Emmanuel Wike in his welcome speech called on members to continue to defend the profession while building core competencies against onslaughts of quacks and other professions attempting to hijack the jobs of real estate surveyors and valuers .
“The role of the Estate Surveyor and Valuers as the key driver of the national economy cannot be over emphasised. As a professional body, we are not relenting in our efforts to align with the best global practices in the practice of our profession in Nigeria. We embrace this option for the singular reason of being more impactful to our communities and the nation,” Wike said.
Also in his welcome speech, the chairman of the branch, Adedotun Bamigbola noted that the challenges facing the real estate valuation profession in the next 50 years bothers on maintaining international ethical standards and research.
“These underscore the need for Estate Surveyors and Valuers, particularly those practicing in Lagos State to take charge and evolve to make the necessary professional impact on the state and the society at large through value addition. We need to build on our rich history and the dedication of our past leaders to confront the challenges of the future. The symposium is organised on this historical day to take us down the memory lane and to project us into the future which the profession should prepare for,” Bamigbola said.
Major themes that ran through the discussions included the need for partnerships, adoption of proptech, modernising the profession to meet taste and expectation of young professionals as well as need for the older professionals to transfer knowledge gained from experience to the younger professionals while also getting technological update from younger professionals.
During the discussions, Erhabor called for partnership among real estate valuation firms to form bigger organisations that can boast of multiple real estate and allied expertise, as this is the only way real estate firms can attract big jobs both within Nigeria and internationally.
Odunsi stressed the importance of adoption of proptech and social media for real estate marketing, while ESV Dima-Okojie maintained that there is need to make the profession more appealing to the younger generation.
Leave a Reply