Abuja — Federal Government has challenged surveyors in the country to take advantage of the evolving digital technology to move the surveying profession forward. The government said surveyors would by so doing contribute more to national development.

Minister of Works, Housing and Urban Development, Dr. Muhammad Hassan Lawal, said this at the 2009 Fellows investiture ceremony organised by the Nigerian Institute of Surveyors (NIS) yesterday in Abuja.

He said government recognised the importance of surveyors as one of the key stakeholders in the execution of President Umaru Yar'Adua's seven-point agenda.

"Let me remind the NIS, the Surveyor Council of Nigeria and the surveying community of the need to move the surveying profession forward into the digital era and by so doing move Nigeria forward," he said.

In his address, President of NIS, Dr. Olusola Atilola, expressed dismay at the evolving leadership style in the country which has "succeeded in fostering a culture of mediocrity, religious bigotry, nepotism, corruption and primitive accumulation of wealth by a few privileged while majority of citizenry are wallowing in object poverty."

Speaking against the background of federal government's land reform plan, Atilola said the exercise should be predicated on the knowledge of the contents of the geographical space of the nation, which involves having a data base on land size, location and characteristics.

He said the surveyors are ready to make their technical expertise available in support of government's effort towards moving the country to a land market economy.

"We are ready to make sacrifices towards the production of land cadastre for entire country, using latest technology in the industry and best practices and within the shortest possible period," he said.

The NIS President advocated the need for government to always base its plans and developmental objectives on precise spatial data which are products of surveying and mapping.

He gave the example of the success recorded in the implementation of the Abuja Master-Plan, the Cross River Ortho-photo mapping, the Lagos Digital Mapping Project as an eloquent prove that infrastructure development is better based on spatial data surveying and mapping.