₦airaland Forum

mojounited: Dunno about RCC but definitely not Julius Berger Nigeria in this regard...

The Ogun State Government has earmarked 37,000 hectares of land for the development of a new town that will straddle the Papalanto axis in Obafemi Owode Local Government all the way to Ifo in Ifo Local Government area.

The new town, which will be part of the Lagos Mega City, will take off from the left hand side of the Papalanto road where Nestle Nigeria Plc has its factory off the Abeokuta-Shagamu dual carriageway and will traverse Mowe, Ofada, Loburo and Ifo communities, among others.

However, the news may not be too pleasant to private developers, who have acquired hundreds of hectares of land in the area, especially around Papalanto, but the government has promised that those with genuine papers have nothing to fear

According to the Special Adviser to the Governor on Land Matters and Director-General, Bureau of Lands and Survey, Mrs. Ronke Sokefun, those with valid documents will be paid compensation, while the government will excise existing settlements in order for the indigenes to maintain their heritage.

Sokefun, who spoke in an interview with our correspondent on Wednesday, said in order to facilitate the establishment of the modern city that would be a model in physical planning and infrastructure, the state government had acquired 1.5 kilometre of land from the centre of the Papalanto road on the left hand side.

The immediate past administration in the state had caused a stir when it announced the acquisition of the area on the excuse that the private developers, who flocked to the area due to the availability of relatively cheap land, had not sufficiently commenced developments.

The Real Estate Developers Association of Nigeria cried foul and made spirited appeals to the government for a reconsideration of its action, while the villagers too protested the acquisition.

Eventually, a committee was set up to review the acquisition and verify all documents possessed by the developers so that billions of naira already committed to the axis would not go down the drain.

Sokefun said the Governor Ibikunle Amosun administration “has kick-started the new town development and we are about to do the master plan.”

Speaking on the Isheri-Shagamu interchange, off the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, the special adviser said buyers of land in the area should do proper investigation before committing their resources because the state government had acquired two-kilometre breadth of land on either side of the expressway for the Ogun Property and Investment Corporation since 1994.

However, she said the affected villagers ganged up against the government and started selling large parcels of land to members of the public.

“That is why there is uncontrolled development in the area. However, we put our feet down and that is why there is a semblance of order in the axis now,” Sokefun said.

She, however, said that despite the various abuses, the Amosun administration had not taken land from anybody apart from those recommended by the judicial panel of enquiry set up by the governor to look into land administration in the state immediately he assumed office.

The special adviser said a lot of people that rushed to acquire land in the state did so for speculative reasons without adding any value to the land, with about seven agencies of government involved in the allocation of land to different classes of people.

Having met a sordid land administration process on ground, she said her first task was to undertake a holistic reform of the entire system that resulted in the reassessment of operations.

Sokefun said, “When I came in, I saw a report by the International Finance Corporation ranking Ogun State as the 36th on the ease of doing business index in the country, and one of the complaints was the timeline for land transactions.

“To correct this, we set out to automate our processes, but we had to first review our old policies. We carried out a basic process review through a consultant, Aviazon Consulting. The review involved reengineering and a lot of interviews; the firm worked for about six months and generated a workflow covering different areas of land transactions.”

She also said the bureau had commenced the use of the Electronic Data Management System to store vital land information on a central server that would be accessible from connected computers.

“When I came in, everything was 100 per cent manual. Files containing vital land information from the Western Region era were strewn on shelves. We have brought in special scanners and servers to capture records. We have been able to index those files now,” she said.

The next stage, according to her, is the Geographic Information System that will provide up-to-date satellite imageries for the entire state to aid planning, adding that the border communities would have images of 50cm, while others would have 80cm.

“Where we are going is for people to stay in their offices or homes and log on to our website and complete their land transactions. Computers are already installed in our search rooms and people can conduct their searches themselves after paying a token; we don’t want any exploitation,” Sokefun said.

Written by Lanre Adewole, Lagos
Monday, 19 November 2012

LAGOS State governor, Mr Babatunde Fashola, on Sunday, explained the introduction of Chinese language as a subject in schools while thumbing-up, with statistics, the all-inclusive security policy being implemented in the state.

He spoke at a gathering on the Lagos Television premises in Ikeja, in commemoration of his 2,000 days in office.

He also told his audience, which included former governors, artisans, pressure groups, market women, traditional rulers and politicians, that though Yoruba language is still being taught in schools, it would not be the responsibility of teachers to teach pupils and students their mother tongue.

Citing the globally-expanding Chinese economy as the reason for the introduction of the Chinese language in Lagos schools, the governor noted that the subject was not made compulsory but desirable.

According to him, “the decision does not compel any child who does not want to. Let us start from there, but perhaps I think it is important and this is my view of the matter. 

“Our mother tongue, Yoruba language, is not the responsibility that we should pass to the teachers. It is the responsibility of the parents to teach their children the Yoruba language at home.

“We can’t blame the teachers for our children not speaking Yoruba language. We must be honest with ourselves. Other ethnic groups don’t suffer that affliction.

“Now about Chinese language. I think we must continue to think about what our world would be like in the next 20 to 30 years and anybody who is being honest with himself would see clearly that from Britain to the United States, the Chinese are becoming our largest trading partners.”

Josh090: Truth is, as of today no city is cleaner dan ibadan not even calabar.
Reason is, go along challenge down to dugbe, down to UI, you will tink ibadan is d cleanest city in naija, but go to inner city like gege and co, its anoda story despite d effort of d local and state government in those areas ppl have refused to use d waste drums properly, looking @ dt you'll tink IB is very dirty...this same situation is obtainable everywhere in ds country. Apart frm calabar municipality, d rest isn't so clean. Lagos too isn't all clean either, but @ least oyo govt. Is making serious efforts @ arresting the situation.
Abt being mediaval, no doubt ibadan township is medieval and can be nauseating sometimes, but go to samonda and bodija and see if you won't be in awe.

pwettytemmy: ilorin and u?

van bonattel: Ebonyi is better than Ekiti.

obitwo:
Up next. The Lagos Fourth Mainland Bridge

onatisi: i am not here to argue any point, just ointing out which is state road or not ,

seanet01: Ogun is da BEST! We have dwarfed all other Yoruba states. Omo Ogun ise ya. We be da Best.

onatisi: ibadan/oyo road is a federal road contructed by the federal govt and not oyo state govt

onatisi: ibadan/oyo road is a federal road contructed by the federal govt and not oyo state govt

seanet01: Can you see why pdp must be resisted at all cost in the South West? How on earth can you took a loan of 18 billion naira to build six stadia? Is Oyinlola Mad?

obitwo: Of course everyone knows that the SW is the most densely populated region

Abagworo: That's how it should be. South-south( Especially Rivers, Bayelsa, Delta and Akwa-Ibom) should be the richest region in Africa.

andrewza: ...And SA has ended civil wars in many countries something nigeria can not even achieve in it's own.

People should stop talking out there ASS

...After South Africa’s faux pas in Ivory Coast, Libya and Mali, Africans has turned to Abuja for guidance

Nigeria successfully led African efforts that ended civil wars in Sierra Leon, Liberia and in Ivory Coast

andrewza: ...Africa has not turned to nigeria for guidence. The mission is AU mission with ECOWAS has the lead group.

Am saddened when i hear some younger fellas talk tribalism based on civil war which they know nothing about and continuously spread the virus thereby poisoning pure minds.

FreeGlobe: God bless you. @OP there you have it, Awolowo invented tribalism in Nigeria. He fathered tribalism in nigeria. Every other explanation apart from this is propaganda.

...For now Nigeria seems to be winning all the campaigns. However, for Abuja to stay engaging, it needs to cultivate strong relations with key players such as Morocco.

...Moroccan diplomats should remind their Nigerian brothers that Tanzania and Zambia recognized the “independence” of Biafra in 1968.