President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has called on the 36 governors of the country to establish Geographical Information System Laboratories to facilitate the challenges faced in the allocation of lands in the country.
The president, who stated this when he inaugurated the N250million Niger State Geographical Information System Laboratory during his one-day working visit to the state yesterday, noted that development? could only be achieved if the challenges faced in managing land resources were properly and systematically tackled.
He said it was in realisation of this that the federal government set up a special committee to look into the wrongful allocation of lands in the country, with a view to ensuring that efforts were channelled towards transforming the large expanse of land the country was blessed with into economic viability.
“The federal government is doing everything within its purview to streamline the issue of land allocation in Nigeria: we have also set up a special committee to look into ways of turning land which is our major asset into cash,” he said.
On? the dualisation of the 125km Abuja-Minna road which his administration promised to reconstruct,? he reiterated that government believed that the project had direct relevance to the social economic development of the state, and a critical component of his administrations transformation agenda. He also appreciated the voters’ support to him during the last general elections.
“The people of Niger State showed me hospitality and endorsed me during the last general election, and this administration remains grateful to the people for believing in the reforms which I began before given another mandate,” he added.
Earlier the governor Dr. Babangida Aliyu said the state decided to embark on the project in order to check the activities of land speculators who had been giving the state trouble, especially as it concerned the issue of compensation.