We have redefined land administration, paved way for businesses to thrive – EdoGIS MD – Nigerian Observer

Since she assumed office as Managing Director of Edo State Geographic Information Service (EdoGIS) in August 2022, Mrs. Osaro Grace Aihie has steered the agency in the right direction towards achieving its mandate, and the agency under her watch has earned plaudits from businesses operating in the state who attest to its contribution to ease of doing business. Mrs Aihie, a lawyer, estate surveyor and valuer, and a fellow of the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers, sat with a team of editors and reporters from The Nigerian Observer in her office at Sapele Road, Benin City, where she elaborated on the work that the six-year-old institution is doing, the challenges faced, and the plans ahead. Excerpts:

We will start by asking you, what is the mandate of EDOGIS?

Our mandate at EdoGIS is to administer the land resources in Edo State; to title documents, that is, issue Certificate of Occupancy (C of O), to do cadastral surveys, to do land acquisition and compensation on behalf of the government and also to take care of the land-based taxes, Land Use Charge which comprises the property tax, tenement rate and ground rent. Basically, we take care of anything that has to do with land.

We have interviewed a number of businesses operating in Edo, like Okomu, Presco, Bragav and others, and they all have positive things to say about EDOGIS. What exactly have you done (or are you doing) to earn this reputation?

To start with, I will say that this is the first time that Okomu has paid Land Use Charge. I am not talking about ground rent and others, they have been paying all that. But what we did was we sat down, we talked, we brought out the law, we enforced it and for the first time they paid their Land Use Charge last year. So what do we do to enhance ease of doing business? Ease of doing business comprises that the investors should have a fair playing ground and the people should be carried along to understand what the investors have come to do. So, as I said, we come together, we sit down and we discuss. Where there are problems, we look at the problems and look for a solution and everybody agrees, then we go on. That is the ease of business we are talking about. They don’t have bottlenecks that are stopping them from doing their business. And the people, if they cooperate with the investors, they are likely going to get employment. These are the things we do. We don’t fight; problems are to be solved, so we sit down, look at the problem and solve it. A little to the right, a little to the left, and everybody is happy. And when it comes to title, if you say you have a land somewhere, we will look at our records and tell you that from the records, this or that person is the true owner and problems are solved.

And since the beginning of this new technology that His Excellency has brought, many things have changed. Land grabbing has reduced drastically; no more loss of investment or capital. Before now some people would just go and buy land without conducting a search and when they come to EdoGIS, they see that the property is either mortgaged or does not belong to the person who sold it to them. There is loss of investment there. But what I keep saying is that you should conduct a search. If you are going to buy a land for N100 million, you just need N25,000 to find out if that land is free from all encumbrances. If you do that, and we tell you, ‘Yes, it is John that owns the land’, then you are good to go. Then, if there is already a C of O and you come for the same land, there is an overlap and we cannot continue. We stop there and call those involved, communities even come. Sometimes they agree that they even gave the same land to two people, then we say no, you have to relocate one person to another land. For those we cannot solve their problem, we refer them to the court and the law court decides who the owner is. When they send in the judgement, we accept and implement it. Because of all this, the issue of double dealing has drastically reduced.

We also visit communities. We went to one community recently and told them about the need to register their layout. If they do that too, there will be no double dealing, there will be no land grabbing, no strife. They have been able to key in because they see it is good for them. If you have a community where they don’t fight, where they don’t double deal, many people will like to come there and the value of your land will increase. When investors come and you accept them in a community, they are happy. That is what we are talking about, ease of doing business, and it is helping us.

You are trying to help businesses solve their problems, but I know EdoGIS has its own challenges. Could you talk about these challenges, and how are you going about solving them?

When I came here, there were a lot of problems but we have solved most of them. The most prominent one was representatives, people who represent people, clients. I met them here and they were over 150; they were more than my staff. I saw that the problem the governor tried to solve was coming back. We take just N50,000 to process C of O, but they were taking over N200,000 from the owners. I said no, it can’t be so. We invited all of them, interviewed them, screened them, took the ones we wanted and gave them rules and regulations to guide them. They have keyed in and things have changed.

There was also another problem. Before GIS you could pay for C of O and for two to three years you would not get it. People would tell you they paid as much as N1.5 million, but since we started EdoGIS, Governor Obaseki reduced the cost to N50,000. So if you pay N50,000 and your documents are correct, no objection, you will get your C of O in 30 working days. You will just pay a little more than that N50,000 if there are some documents you still need to do. We are not just saying it, we have started doing it. We have government-community relationship also introduced by this government. The governor said he wanted us to be meeting with the communities. We are doing those things for them, we should not do it on their behalf, they should understand what we are doing so they can key in. So we visit the communities; we go to them and meet with them so we understand each other.

We also had to change the work flow. When I came in something happened – and this is not to put my officers in bad light, it is about solving problems and making things flow. We saw about 2,000 files locked up in one place, and people had been complaining. So we changed the work flow, we changed the people, we changed everything, and things have started working. We are doing very well now compared to then. But daily problems will come and we will solve them daily as they come.

Let’s say I am an investor who has just come into Edo State, could you talk us through the process from the point where I see a plot of land that I am interested in to the point where I get my C of O?

First of all, if you are an investor and you want to get a land, whatever land shown to you, conduct a search. So, first, you have to conduct a search to be sure that the land you are buying belongs to that person who is selling it to you; be sure it is not encroached. Some people may sell mortgaged land to you and you won’t know, but when you conduct a search, we are able to say, ‘This land belongs to John, but he has mortgaged it to XYZ Bank’. That means: don’t buy, don’t pay, it is not free. But if the land is free and you buy and then you want to come for you C of O, you will bring all we require: the survey plan of that land, the documents with which you bought, your tax clearance certificate, your passport photograph. If you are going to use a representative, you also bring a passport of that person since you won’t be on ground. These are the main things you will bring along. There are other things like utility bill, just to tie the address to where we will be relating to you. Once you get those things, the property will have to pay Land Use Charge, which is the tax on the land. Remember, don’t pay it to anybody. We are cashless here, we don’t take cash. Once you collect the C of O form, you will see the account to pay it to and you will get your receipt. If all your papers are in order, in 30 working days you should get your C of O. But someone can object to the issuance of C of O. To object, you pay N25,000. So, if we are processing and somebody objects, we will stop and let you know that someone is objecting and we cannot continue. We then look at the issues involved with a view to finding solution. We can even invite both parties involved.

When you go to some communities, your land already has C of O but they tell you that it is long and you will have to pay again. So, does C of O have expiry date?

C of O has no expiration. It is a lease hold document. I won’t call it expiration. The Land Use Act of 1978 gave birth to C of O. It is for 99 years, that is what it should be if it is fresh. But if somebody is giving you C of O and it is not fresh, if it has stayed for 20 years, your own will be minus 20 years. Sometimes when I tell people it’s for 99 years, they start complaining, but nobody is even going to take it from you after 99 years; they are just going to renew it. Your children will continue with it.

However, when you are buying, see the date and see what you are buying. If somebody also has C of O, what you do is consent, which is like change of name. For that consent, you still have to have records with His Excellency because he is the only one that can do that. By law, it is the person selling to you that should come and obtain the consent, but they just sell to you and leave you to do it, otherwise you don’t have something to hold on to.

You mentioned encumbrances that may be revealed through search. Apart from selling the same land to two different people, what other encumbrances are likely to arise?

One is mortgage. You have mortgaged the property and you didn’t tell anyone, then you went ahead and sold it. That’s an encumbrance. When you get here to conduct a search, that encumbrance will be revealed. The land is for John but the interest is with XYZ Bank, they will not let you sell. If you buy, you have bought nothing.

The other encumbrance we are solving now with search is that before now, people would just buy land and there is nothing to check if there is anything there, but now if you just do survey, we will check it and if there is an overlap, then that’s an encumbrance and we cannot continue. That land is not free for you to use.

Then there is acquisition and revocation. If government allocates a land and it is revoked, it will be an encumbrance when you buy a revoked property. So when you get here and conduct a search, we will say, ‘fallen on government property’. We can also say it is fallen on the forest reserve, and we will not give you; it is an encumbrance. Some communities are selling forest reserves. When the buyers now come here to search, they will see forest reserve like Okomu, Ogba, and so on. We have many forest reserves, so if you go there and buy land within the forest reserve, we cannot process the C of O.

Edo GIS was awarded the best GIS in the South South in April 2023. Could you tell us more about the award?

If you have been following all the things we have been saying in the media, I have said that this place is a state-of-the-art office, one of its kind in the whole country. The technology we have here, you cannot see it in other places. In fact, other states are coming here to learn what we are doing. Enugu came, Abia came, Anambra is coming, Akwa Ibom is coming, and Delta as well. I am here most of the times working because the office is conducive. There is 24-hour power supply from Ossiomo.

Apart from that, we have technology, we have drones, we have mobile mapper. We have a lot of technology here that is helping us. The core station helps surveyors to do very precise survey. They come in every day because they need that core station, it was put there to help surveyors do better at surveys.

How did you get the workforce to do all the job you are doing at EdoGIS?

EdoGIS came out from the defunct Ministry of Land and Survey, so many of the staff here are staff of Ministry of Land and Survey. When His Excellency decided to change the face of land administration in the state and the technology came about, the staff of Ministry of Land and Survey were brought here for those who wanted to key in. For those who said they could not key in to the technology, they were sent to different MDAs. That time e-gov had not started; right now e-gov has caught up with everybody, so there is no hiding place. But then, few places had technology like this; some went to other MDAs, some retired, and some came in. At a point there was a recruitment exercise and some set of new people were brought in.

Right now we have three sets of people here. We have the civil and public servants, and we have the GIS staff. For the GIS, some white people helped us, and they are still around. We have some staff that were trained by them and they are already working with us, so when the white people are going they will leave the trained staff for us.

Then we have ad-hoc staff. When His Excellency brought me here, he said he wasn’t happy that he had technology but he didn’t have people using them. I went to UNIBEN, got a professor who knows about GIS, and told him I needed some GIS experts. We have about 14 of them now, they are on ad-hoc basis but the government will absorb them when they are done. So we have the best of them from UNIBEN, as they graduate they bring them here. We are also up-to-date in terms of training, both internal and external. Apart from JOOPSA, we have a training hall right here. The training is continuous because it is part of the GIS. If we have money we will have a GIS school in the long term.

Given that your office is in Benin City, is EdoGIS also thinking of decentralization to make things easier for those outside the state capital?

Yes, we are already thinking of that. In fact, the Chairman of Etsako West has already promised me officers because I want to put a GIS office in Auchi and I want to put one in Ekpoma so that people there will not have to come this way. Also, we are able to process C of O online and some people are taking advantage of that, so you don’t have to come. People abroad, people that cannot come, just submit your information online and we will process your C of O. So when we open a GIS office in Auchi, no need for people to come, our staff there will bring their information, then we process; when they are ready, they will come and collect. We want to do that so that it will also help with ease of business and save people the stress of long travel.

In all of this, sustainability is key. What are the plans to ensure that all these lofty achievements continue even you have left office?

That is the idea. If it doesn’t continue, that means we are gone and it will be very sad. Governor Obaseki has laid a good foundation that we should not go back to Egypt. If we go back, we will not come out again. Pharaoh will hold us down.

I remember when His Excellency brought me here, I told him, ‘Your Excellency, I may have many things upstairs, but computer?’ He said go, and I have keyed in. The only thing they say is constant is change. It is technology that makes you see all the money we are generating. It is very important, we must key in, we will sustain it.

The governor does not want us to build personalities but institutions. What that means is that if I drop dead today, another person will sit here and this thing will move on. The governor has laid the foundation, so we have to key in and move on. That is the only way we can sustain it. So I am not afraid at all. If I am still here, be sure no going back. If any other governor comes, it is a good thing. We pray for sustainability.

What would you want to be remembered for when you leave office?

People who know me know me for integrity, hard work and, above all, fear of God. If you don’t do what is right, in a way you are accountable to God. I fear God, and it is because I fear God that I learnt how to do things properly because if you are not there, God is there. Many people know me, many people can speak for me because I am very firm. Maybe I am too firm but that is who I am. So, I want to be remembered as someone who fears God and someone who wants to do what is right always by God’s grace.