Peter C.? Nwilo, the Surveyor General of the Federation, speaks to Pateince Ivie Obhafuoso and Blessing Ukemena on the importance of adequate mapping of the country.
What is the role of your office in land reform policies?
We are there to provide the basic infrastructure. The land reform talks about how we can get access to land at a cheaper rate. This cannot be achieved if there are no maps.
Like I said earlier it will help reduce costs, some of the money that was spent will not have been spent if we had current, up to date maps.
What is the government policy on structure and the Nigeria’s building code?
That is not strictly our jurisdiction but I know that government just had a new building code for the country which informs you about how to build properly – how far from the road a building should be, but you know Nigerians, when they want to build they take up every available space, including the road.
This can result in? demolition, which is not good. What we do in this office is called Right of Way. This Right of Way deals with creating a space from the centre of the road to the edge, both to the right and to the left.
Any building on such a space is not supposed to be there. The space by the road made available depends on the type of road – whether it is an express road, a Trunk A or Trunk B road.
Sir, apart from Abuja, many Nigerian cities are poorly designed and built. What do you think is the problem??
Both the government and the people are to blame for this. Nigerians naturally like to break the law; the government is also to blame because they do not enforce the laws. Where there is a law, there should be enforcement.
There are areas that are supposed to be reserved for gutters, pipelines, green areas and all that. These are supposed to be contained in the master plan and thus buildings are not to be erected in such areas, but a Nigerian will go ahead and build, saying “if they come I will 'settle', they will wait to see what will happen.
Lately, there have been reported cases of building collapse in the country. Are the surveyors failing to provide professional services in the preparation of Bill of Quantity?
Not exactly, the surveyor is meant to provide information about the topography on a given piece of land. For example is it a slope or a wetland? Most of those problems are structural in nature. When you build without consulting professional you are bound to have problems.
Nigerians like to cut corners and there are a lot of quack surveyors out there, and Nigerians will want to patronize them because they will? charge at a lower price. Nigerians do not want to do topography, they just cut a space and start building. They do not reserve space for green areas. If you build on a flood plain, for example, you will have problems.
In Abuja now, they do not place topographical information as to what is to be done in a given area, which is not good. If you build on a natural drain, how will the water flow? You have just created a dam and when the water comes it will stay there, thus creating a problem.
The government has not been able to provide adequate housing for Nigerians since the idea of Vision 2010 started in the 1990s. What is your take on it?
What government has tried to do is to bring in private developers who are now building, but I notice that there is no control in terms of what should be in place; things like green areas. In a place that is highly populated and has? no trees, naturally there will be high temperatures, since you have laid concrete everywhere.
Coming back to your question, I want to say that it is no longer fashionable for government to do everything by itself. So the government has encouraged private developers to come in but I have a problem with that. Even in federal housing, mortgage banks, etc.,? they demand full payment for the house within a year – which should not be.
They ought to give the people more time to pay, else you are encouraging a person to go out and look for that money at all costs. That is not how it is done in foreign countries; there everything you need is already paid for, so one can attend to other needs.
What are the punishments for flaunting environmental laws while setting up a building?
One of the punishments is that your registration will be suspended or revoked. If you have caused extensive damage for a person as the surveyor, then you will be taken to court.
What is your office doing about ensuring that buildings are up to structural standards?
That is not the duty of this office. What we do here is to provide maps, to show you the necessary cord way of places. It is very necessary to know where wetlands are, where a slope is, to inform environmentally friendly structural patterns. These are basic information that one would need when carrying out any project.
What challenges have you encountered since you came into office?
The first thing is that I am new here. I am still trying to learn the necessary steps involved. I have come to know that we also need to do a massive mapping of the country. The present topographical maps are very old. The last time the country was mapped was in 1973. We have not done new maps since then.
So we need to map the country again. If this is done, we will not be experiencing the problems in relation to the environment like flooding. We will not have slums and Nigeria will be better planned. In fact, it will reduce cost, in that roads will be done at a cheaper rate because the engineer will just have to look at the maps and make his initial designs.
Another challenge is that some states are working with what we call 'local origin', that is, they do not fit into the map of the country. Thus, we have to harmonise them with the map of the country. We intend to map the whole continent of Africa and we have not even been able to map some of the states in the country.
We do make use of computers to do these mappings and we intend to put them on the internet, so if you want a map you do not have to come to the office but just go online and buy it.