The Ogun State Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Land Allocations, Acquisitions, Sales and Concession of Government Properties and Administration of Land Policies, Rules and Regulations was set up for a purpose—to correct the perceived wrongs done to certain people and communities whose land were forcefully acquired between January 2004 and May 29, last year, OKWY IROEGBU-CHIKEZIE reports
The Ogun State Government has liberalised land acquisition and documentation. This is a fall-out of the judicial commission of enquiry set up on September 16, 2011 by Governor Ibikunle Amosun.
The committee had, as part of its mandate, to inquire into allocations of state land between January 2004 and May 29, 2011. It also had to identify whether such allocations involved breaches of policies, guidelines, rules, regulations or procedures resulting in non-payment or underpayment of appropriate fees.
Others were: to establish loss of revenue to the state; multiple allocation of prime land to any person or group of persons; loss of opportunity to the state for industrial, commercial and agricultural development or any other situation, which in the opinion of the commission, was not in the public interest.
Besides, it was also mandated to inquire into the structures, systems, methods, policies and procedures of land administration in Ogun State between January 2004 and May 29, 2011 to determine the adequacy, conformity with best practices and transparency of the systems, methods, policies and procedures as well as identifying instances of impropriety in land allocation and acquisition.
Before then, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) had tagged the Ogun 36th among states on the ease of doing business, especially on land acquisition and documentation.
But the Special Adviser/Director General, Bureau of Lands and Survey, Mrs Ronke Sokefun, said the challenge before was not that the bureau didn’t have the required manpower but what they lacked was cohesion between the various agencies, which created the time lag in land document processing.
She said the government hired a consultant to handle the review and re-engineering to automate the processing of Certificate of Occupancy (C of O), review how various departments interact. She said the bureau has succeeded in generating a work flow of how the papers would move from desk to desk until they get the final signature. This, she said, had not only reduced time but also removed duplication, exploitation, fraud and loss of important land documents of members of members of the public.
A surveyor, Mr Lukman Kasali, whose office is in Mowe, Ogun State, confirmed that he has had some reprieve since the land documentation was automated by the state government. He recounted how he used to tip people to push his clients’ files, but noted that there was no longer any need to do that as interaction with members of staff was almost nil.
He said: “My duty now is just to pay the prescribed fees and submit the necessary files and when it is ready, they will contact me, professionals have never had it so good.”
Another surveyor, Mr Adeyanju Adelekun, had the same testimony. He said surveyors were experiencing ease of business due to the automation of the land bureau.
On Geographic Information System (GIS), Sokefun said they have information on their border areas as accurate as 50 centimetres while inside the estate is as accurate as 80 centimetres. This, she said, is also geared towards accurate land information processing.
She said staff members of the Bureau have a schedule of training to make them competent and conversant with the new technology.
Mrs Sokefun also revealed that the Surveyor-Generals and Deputy Governors of Ogun and Lagos states are meeting on border issues relating to Agbara, Ojodu and Akute among others, to have an amicable settlement on the contentious borders.
She refuted claims that the state has taken people’s land from developers on the Mowe, Ibafo, Papalanto along the Lagos/Ibadan Expressway. She, however, contended that the law stipulates that the state government owns any land that is within two kilometres on each side.
Sokefun regretted that before now, some highly placed people got land on discount at ridiculous prices to the extent that 20 hectares sold for N20 million, which was as good as free without any evidence of payment in several cases. She regretted a case at hand in Papalanto where there are over ‘40 estates’ by signboards, stressing that most of them are land speculators and warned that the entire left side of the area falls into the state government’s new towns project.
On the contentious River View estate in Isheri, she once again denied the rumour that the government has cancelled the allocation but blamed the past administration for allocating the area, which it knew to be a water belt and not fit for habitation.
She said: “OPIC knew River View estate is a water belt, the water there is meant to flow into Ogun River. The whole deal is a scam. It was never supposed to be an estate but they made it so in 2004.
He added: “Some experts have suggested that we construct artificial lake to check the flooding challenges in the estate but the truth is that we cannot deep our hands into our lean resources to do channelisation for them.”
She also refuted the allegation of collecting the balance of N250 million from the N700 million promised by President Goodluck Jonathan.
