Business
A’Ibom Speaker Tasks Young Surveyors On N’Delta Environment
Nigeria’s young
professionals have been challenged to seek cutting-edge solutions to the myriad of challenges now facing the nation in order to assume their rightful positions as future leaders.
The Speaker, Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Onofiok Luke, gave the charge on Saturday while declaring open the 12th Regional South-South Young Surveyors’ Conference in the state capital, Uyo.
The Speaker who expressed delight that young professionals were taking interest in providing solutions to national challenges said the theme of the conference which was “Harnessing Geospatial Solutions for Environmental Challenges And Regional Development of South-South Nigeria” was apt.
Luke noted that decades of oil and gas exploration and exploration and several other practices injurious to the environment had left the Niger Delta region gravely endangered.
In seeking solution to these challenges, Luke said the young surveyors must know their root causes. He noted that despite the billions of Naira committed to infrastructural development by multi-national and development Agencies including the Niger Delta Development Commission (NNDC), very little impact is visible.
“You must ask, what happened to the royalties from multi-nationals to our communities, what happened to royalties from other sources. We all should be focused in providing solutions”, the Speaker said.
According to him, lack of planning in all sectors of national life was responsible for the challenges facing the nation and called for inter-face between surveyors and multi-national firms, as well as new approaches to providing solution.
He said that environmental challenges, including flooding and desertification call for the impute of surveyors to address and regretted that Akwa Ibom State has only about 3,000 registered surveyors.
He called on young surveyors to draw from the combination of experience and mentoring of old surveyors and youthfulness and cutting-edge technology of contemporary times to solve the nation’s environmental challenges. He assured that the state legislature will synergies with surveyors to provide legal framework for their recommendation.
In her speech, the Surveyor-General of Akwa Ibom State, Surveyor Mrs Emem P. Isang said the state government was in synergise with surveyors in addressing geospatial matters.
Donald Mike-Jaja