By Samuel Ogidan
Surveyor-General of the Federation (OSGOF), Prof. Peter Nwilo, yesterday revealed plans to unveil new atlas for the country.
Nwilo, who disclosed this when members of the House Committee on Works visited him for oversight function, said that his office is waiting for President Goodluck Jonathan approval before the atlas was circulated.
Explaining the mapping of the country, a project that would help Nigeria to compete with other developed nations in terms of development, Nwilo lamented that paucity of fund had hindered the mapping of the entire country.
He also said out of the N1.8 billion budget approved for the agency for 2014, only N629.9 million had been received so far, adding that N371.2 million had been used to service the office, including salaries beginning from January to June.
He said: “Our mapping helps Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to monitor Ekiti governorship election. Abuja does not have accurate map. If you cannot map it, you cannot manage it. It is by mapping you can manage your land.”
Earlier, the Chairman, House Committee on Work, Hon. Ogbuefi Ozomgbachi, said that their coming to the agency was to see how the budget passed by the House of Representatives had been translated to development.
Meanwhile, the Surveyor-General of the Federation, Prof. Peter Nwilo, has said that his office has offered to support the cause for expanding the economic base of Nigeria through the release of specific maps that would assist in the inventory of in-depth assets of the six geo-political zones in Nigeria.
He said this when the Chief Economic Adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan, Dr. Nwanze Okedigbe, visited him in Abuja.
He said part of the success story recorded in Ekiti state election was due to the good collaboration OSGOF had with INEC, adding that INEC gave some information on Ekiti, which the office used to produce maps showing the pooling units in the state that guided the electoral umpire.
The Economic Adviser to the President, however, said his visit was informed by a matching order given by “Mr. President to carry out an in-depth inventory of all the assets Nigeria has, in the six geo-political zones, covering natural resources, infrastructure, human capital and business aspects, with a view to improve the regional planning, based on the endowment of each zone.”
