The Rivers State Governor, Rt Hon Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi has charged surveyors to ensure that they remained true to the practice of their profession even in the face of undue pressure for political or economic gains.
Governor Amaechi, who gave the charge at the 2012 coordination and advisory Board on Survey Training conference in Port Harcourt, yesterday, said the integrity of surveyors would be in jeopardy if they bowed to political or economic considerations in the practice and interpretation of surveying and mapping works.
Declaring open the 3-day conference with the theme’ Review of the Survey Coordination Act in Tune with Current Challenges,” Amaechi said a situation whereby boundaries are adjusted on political or economic considerations is not only an aberration but have given rise to series of litigations arising between one state and another.
He cited cases where, boundaries change, especially in South-South region, according to oil wells and not necessarily true to genuine survey mappings.
He acknowledged that surveyors are critical to national development, and stressed the need for the practitioners to embrace research and development (RxD) towards putting the nation on the fast lane of development.
In his keynote address, the Minister of Works, Mike Onolemenen, represented by the Minister of State for Works, Ambassador Bashir Yuguda, explained that the main objective of the conference was to coordinate and harmonise survey activities in Nigeria in order to save cost and make survey information available to all agencies of government and the citizens to enable them apply correct interpretations to survey works.
He noted that it has become imperative to review the survey coordination act because over the time, technologies mode of data acquisition data storage and management used in surveying and mapping have substantially changed.
Onolememen agreed with Amaechi that surveying is the bedrock of all developments and said with the determination of the office of the surveyor-General of the Federation (OSGOF), the problem of obsolete and inadequate maps would soon be a thing of the past.
He remarked that digital maps at various scales are bring produced by OSGOF, and urged state government to follow suit in the onerous task of moderning survey operations and techniques in line with modern technologies.
Earlier, the Surveyor-General of the Federation, Prof Peter Chigozie Nwilo had said that the conference, which is an annual event, was designed to deliberate on matters that relate to the surveying and mapping profession with a view to improving the practice, reduce duplication and share knowledge for national development.
Nwilo, therefore, urged the participants to rise to the challenge of recommending areas of the surveying and mapping sector that require change to meet current realities.
In his speech, the state surveyor-General, Gairus Assor noted that the theme of the conference agrees with the path of a new dawn, and advised the surveyors to remain committed to the task of transforming the nation to better the lots of the people.
Sam Eleonu
