From: Taiwo Oluwadare, Ibadan
Chairman of Oyo State chapter of the Nigerian Institution of Surveyors (NIS), Mr. Ola Shiyanbola, has described surveying as a determinant of economic prosperity in any country.
The NIS chairman stated this, on Friday, during the institute’s bi-monthly South West meeting held at its state secretariat, in Ibadan.
According to him, the economy of any country depends on land and surveyors are first people to work on the land to enhance a physical development. “Therefore we are the one developing the economy of any sector because all businesses depend on land.
“We determine the right location, the size of land whether it is acquired for structures like airport, road or dam, the surveyors must work on the land before constructions can take place”, Shiyanbola said.
He also talked on menace of quackery saying: “though there are quacks in all professions including surveying but as a way to tackle the menace, ethics committee in Surveyors Council of Nigeria are given the role of arresting unlicensed practitioners.
“Each institution are to make sure that anybody caught as quacks should be reported and get arrested. Quacks affect economic prosperity as using wrong plan specification for an expanse of land in a situation like this, makes an investor who obtained loan to acquire land incur loses”, he said.
Shiyanbola added that contrary to shortfall of practitioners in the past, things are changing nowadays, because the profession is now more lucrative due to technological advancement in measuring land.
Speaking on the meeting, Shiyanbola said the surveyors are meeting at the southwest level to share ideas because the southwest states have the same land tenure system, saying the practitioners meet bi-monthly to chat way forward on promoting the profession.
Corroborating him, the Oyo State Surveyor General, Alaba Sekore said that, as the national body meet on Mandatory Continuing Professional Development (MCPD), that the practitioners at the local level should do so to expand the frontier of the profession.
He enjoined them on need to engage in politics because politics is power and power creates wealth.
He said: ” I implore Surveyors to participate in politics. When we are in position of power, we can create productive jobs for professionals and we will have the magnificent opportunity to contribute our quota to the national development of our nation”, he said.