Fesowola O. V. Akintoye mnis,rs,mSCgis, msc gis & Env.
fesowola@glogeomaticsnigeria.com.
fesowola@glogeomaticsnigeria.com.
By statistics, Nigeria has been taken to be the most populous black nation in the world and by implication, one out of every Five black man on earth is a Nigerian. The population of Nigeria was in 2006 said to be about 170 million and might be approaching 200 million today.
At independence in 1960, the Canadian government in response to the needs of the new nation mapped and bequeathed series of 1 in 50,000, 1 in 100,000 and smaller scales topographic maps of every nook and corner of the country to the in-coming indigenous government. This was an extensive mapping of the country that provided geodata for planning, administration and governance.
The bequeathed maps were not without a lot of challenges in its usage. Their were wrong and misplaced names on the maps; and inappropriate for large scale resource applications but good enough for the level of administration and activities then. Unfortunately, no project of that magnitude has been carried out 55 years after, mindful of the fact that by United Nations standard, the life span of a map is 5 years.
There has been pockets of isolated large scale mapping by some states and corporate bodies for their immediate business concerns, but not in public domain.
The reality of our time is that there has not been any national mapping project in Nigeria for 55 years to support the hopes and aspirations of the people; and by implication national projects like census enumeration, national statistics projects have been consistently executed over the years with map sketches, low resolution satellite imageries and lately map extracts from online map providers like Google, Open street, Bing etc.
All national exercises have been limited to local government geographic aggregations and administrative arrangements. States, local governments and wards boundaries are also only administrative boundaries without geographic entities and meaning. The boundaries are dynamic, seamless and without accurate legal definitions.
Maps and other geodata resources have over the years been the prerogative and preserve of government agencies, majorly the office of the surveyor general of the federation (OSGOF) and the counterparts from the 36 states of the country. For all, production of maps have been an uphill task despite efforts by concerned stake holders to create a productive environment.
In the second republic, contracts for mapping of the local governments were awarded to consultants without any maps to show for the exercise.
OSGOF commenced digitizing of the bequeathed topographic maps as base maps for the country but effort was bedeviled by the low level skills adopted and is still ongoing. Common problems like edge matching, rubber sheeting and re projection has been a problem as appropriate consultants were not engaged.
The National Space Management Agency was set up to improve on the provision of needed maps but has not brought its products into public domain for business; the imageries are useable for medium scale map production at best and still unable to provide the platform for production of large scale imageries for national use.
Resource maps are changing the mind sets of government and private sectors on the relevance of geodata to modern societies; maps with building datasets will provide checks against frivolous census data; for example a locality with known average house hold size, number of buildings, building types and usage can provide approximate demographic data that can be used to validate census data. Also maps with intelligent roads data set will provide logistics support to national projects like elections and census, e-commerce and postal services. Consequently an unmapped nation, provides basis for corruption and anarchy.
The problems of Nigeria including the religious insurgency and corruption can not be curtailed without appropriate mapping and dissemination of knowledge. Our problems can only be solved by Nigerians because no one will love our country like us. OSGOF must wake up to the challenges of our time and provide requisite skills to its workers, adopt appropriate technologies and use appropriate consultants; and above all give us a national mapping project and policies that will expose and bring to the fore the talents and gifts of the younger generation, usher in prosperity and show the path of righteousness to our nation.
It was disclosed that the just concluded national conference deliberated on mapping Nigeria anew and the majority of the members agreed that it was overdue. It is important that stake holders in the Geoinformation industry push the agenda further till it becomes a reality.
Mapping Nigeria today faces a lot of challenges which includes lack of appropriate mapping policies, regulation and technologies that matches the land size, the population and activities; and their associated relationships.
Politicians including the military regimes have over the years provided impetus for regulation and business environment by enacting the Surveyors Registration Council (SURCON) decree and the establishment of the National Space Management Agency (NSMA). NSMA was funded to be fully operational but has provided pseudo geoinformation services resulting in no geodata in open domain for businesses and governance and therefore must rise up to its constitutional responsibilities.
Nigeria must be mapped to provide better understanding of the fundamental problems bedeviling effective planning and usage of our collective resources, also geographic entities need to be mapped within the context of connectivity, relationships and associated events. Maps must be sensitive to household issues that includes poverty, health, education, e-commerce delivery, postal services delivery etc.
Lack of maps have over the years encouraged corruption and deny the nation of appropriate planning and validation inputs to national projects. Not mapping Nigeria means inability to lead our generation with knowledge, lack of project experience for several generations of surveyors; lack of indigenous surveying and mapping culture and undue work load for the coming generation. The coming generation will be robbed of the right to have a documented past upon which the Herculean task of their generation will be built. The time to map Nigeria is now.
Nigeria:Contours
Nigeria: Wetlands
At independence in 1960, the Canadian government in response to the needs of the new nation mapped and bequeathed series of 1 in 50,000, 1 in 100,000 and smaller scales topographic maps of every nook and corner of the country to the in-coming indigenous government. This was an extensive mapping of the country that provided geodata for planning, administration and governance.
The bequeathed maps were not without a lot of challenges in its usage. Their were wrong and misplaced names on the maps; and inappropriate for large scale resource applications but good enough for the level of administration and activities then. Unfortunately, no project of that magnitude has been carried out 55 years after, mindful of the fact that by United Nations standard, the life span of a map is 5 years.
There has been pockets of isolated large scale mapping by some states and corporate bodies for their immediate business concerns, but not in public domain.
The reality of our time is that there has not been any national mapping project in Nigeria for 55 years to support the hopes and aspirations of the people; and by implication national projects like census enumeration, national statistics projects have been consistently executed over the years with map sketches, low resolution satellite imageries and lately map extracts from online map providers like Google, Open street, Bing etc.
All national exercises have been limited to local government geographic aggregations and administrative arrangements. States, local governments and wards boundaries are also only administrative boundaries without geographic entities and meaning. The boundaries are dynamic, seamless and without accurate legal definitions.
Maps and other geodata resources have over the years been the prerogative and preserve of government agencies, majorly the office of the surveyor general of the federation (OSGOF) and the counterparts from the 36 states of the country. For all, production of maps have been an uphill task despite efforts by concerned stake holders to create a productive environment.
In the second republic, contracts for mapping of the local governments were awarded to consultants without any maps to show for the exercise.
OSGOF commenced digitizing of the bequeathed topographic maps as base maps for the country but effort was bedeviled by the low level skills adopted and is still ongoing. Common problems like edge matching, rubber sheeting and re projection has been a problem as appropriate consultants were not engaged.
The National Space Management Agency was set up to improve on the provision of needed maps but has not brought its products into public domain for business; the imageries are useable for medium scale map production at best and still unable to provide the platform for production of large scale imageries for national use.
Resource maps are changing the mind sets of government and private sectors on the relevance of geodata to modern societies; maps with building datasets will provide checks against frivolous census data; for example a locality with known average house hold size, number of buildings, building types and usage can provide approximate demographic data that can be used to validate census data. Also maps with intelligent roads data set will provide logistics support to national projects like elections and census, e-commerce and postal services. Consequently an unmapped nation, provides basis for corruption and anarchy.
The problems of Nigeria including the religious insurgency and corruption can not be curtailed without appropriate mapping and dissemination of knowledge. Our problems can only be solved by Nigerians because no one will love our country like us. OSGOF must wake up to the challenges of our time and provide requisite skills to its workers, adopt appropriate technologies and use appropriate consultants; and above all give us a national mapping project and policies that will expose and bring to the fore the talents and gifts of the younger generation, usher in prosperity and show the path of righteousness to our nation.
It was disclosed that the just concluded national conference deliberated on mapping Nigeria anew and the majority of the members agreed that it was overdue. It is important that stake holders in the Geoinformation industry push the agenda further till it becomes a reality.
Mapping Nigeria today faces a lot of challenges which includes lack of appropriate mapping policies, regulation and technologies that matches the land size, the population and activities; and their associated relationships.
Politicians including the military regimes have over the years provided impetus for regulation and business environment by enacting the Surveyors Registration Council (SURCON) decree and the establishment of the National Space Management Agency (NSMA). NSMA was funded to be fully operational but has provided pseudo geoinformation services resulting in no geodata in open domain for businesses and governance and therefore must rise up to its constitutional responsibilities.
Nigeria must be mapped to provide better understanding of the fundamental problems bedeviling effective planning and usage of our collective resources, also geographic entities need to be mapped within the context of connectivity, relationships and associated events. Maps must be sensitive to household issues that includes poverty, health, education, e-commerce delivery, postal services delivery etc.
Lack of maps have over the years encouraged corruption and deny the nation of appropriate planning and validation inputs to national projects. Not mapping Nigeria means inability to lead our generation with knowledge, lack of project experience for several generations of surveyors; lack of indigenous surveying and mapping culture and undue work load for the coming generation. The coming generation will be robbed of the right to have a documented past upon which the Herculean task of their generation will be built. The time to map Nigeria is now.
Nigeria: Relief
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