Fed Govt Secures $72m For States On Land Development

The Federal Government has secured $2m each for the 36 states of the federation to develop their land information system through a World Bank funded programme.

Minister of Science and Technology, Ogbonaya Onu, disclosed this in Abuja at the Geoinformation Society of Nigeria 2020 Annual Conference.

Onu, who was represented by the Acting Director-General, National Space Research and Development Agency, Francis Chizea, said the fund would be used by the states to gather land information data.

He said, “The application of information technology is the main driver of the recent World Bank space characteristics and responsibility programme anchored by Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning.

“This programme secured $2m each for all the 36 states of the federation to develop states land information system aimed at gathering improved primary data.”

The minister noted that the effort would help generate about 50,000 employments for youths in the various states.

The President, GEOSON, Matthew Adepoju, said the society had a great role in managing every facet of human endeavour, from smart city, precision agriculture, transportation to communications.

This, he said, would firmly position Nigeria through geospatial information, spatial data and other technologies for the capture, management and integration of spatially-referenced data.