Stakeholders at the 2019 Annual Technical Discourse held in Lagos recently, have come to the conclusion that Lagos State has got a lot of things to do if the drive to attain a smart city of its dream will be actualised. The stakeholders said that the major aim of the discourse is to advise Nigerians in general and Lagosians in particular on why planning a city like Lagos will make it very enjoyable to live in.
The discourse with a theme; Geospatial Lagos: Location intelligence for smart Lagos provided various stakeholders opportunity to discuss ways of improving living conditions with resident in distant locations in Lagos State. This, they said could be achieved through spacing of houses and construction of roads to enable environmental operators access every corner for both crimes and other things.
In the views of Mr. Matthew Olumide Adepoju, the President of Geoinformation Society of Nigeria, the discourse was to sensitise Nigerians on the roles of location intelligence for a city like Lagos. He said that with Lagos being a former capital city, one needs a lot of intelligence, one needs technology, highly trained people to actually manage the city.
According to him, greater cities like New York, London and Dubai are using Geospatial technology to manage their cities. He said: “When we talk of Geospatial technology, we are talking of space technology, we are taking about information, communication technology and we a talking of human beings. These are the factors that drive the system.
“Most of the things we do manually are now introduced in computer. To use the location of those things to achieve them better. For instance, many people did not know the sources of bedrock of Lagos. The bedrock of the success of Lagos when it comes to internally generated revenue (IGR) is one of the first set of contracts awarded by the former governor, Bola Tinubu , tagged Property Identification. That project is GIS project whereby the location of every building in Lagos is identified for tax purpose and for the purpose of services to the residents of Lagos. That is the bedrock and the backbone of the success of Lagos. That makes Lagos the fifth biggest economy in Africa”.