Lagos State has government has launched an electronic Geographic Information System (e-GIS) which provides digitised access to all data pertaining to the state land before a purchase is facilitated.
Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, on Friday, launched the e-GIS portal — a one-stop digital platform that sanitises and revolutionises the process of acquiring, documenting and verifying land in Lagos.
As the portal went live, applications for land titles transitioned from the centuries-old manual paperwork into digital form.
The innovation has also completely eliminated services of middlemen in processing of land titles, thereby terminating the cost applicants hitherto paid to lawyers, surveyors and registration agents to get land titles.
Anyone can now verify, search and apply for land titles, including Governor’s Consent, at Lagos State Land Bureau from the comfort of their homes at the click of a computer button.
Applicants can also request for a government survey on any State land and apply for Certified True Copy (CTC) on their landed property.
The e-GIS portal introduced by the Sanwo-Olu administration came on the foundation of Electronic Document Management System (EDMS) bequeathed to the State by the administration of ex-Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu, now President of Nigeria, who started digitisation of land title documents in Lagos.
The Babatunde Fashola administration built on the EDMS structure, introducing electronic documentation of Certificate of Occupancy (C-of-O). Ex-Governor Fashola phased out the old format of C-of-O, and introduced a computer-generated paper with advanced security features, including barcodes, thereby eliminating forgery and cloning in the State’s land records.
Sanwo-Olu’s e-GIS has now organised all archived land records dating back to the 19th century and merged with all land titles, while also storing historical transactional data on every parcel of land in the State’s cadastra.
The launch of the e-GIS portal came with a huge relief to the Governor, who said the project was almost abandoned, given the unanticipated delays and setbacks suffered in the course of digitisation process.
Sanwo-Olu said the portal had transformed land allocation in the State, while bringing precision to the economic value of land. The Governor described land in Lagos as “golden egg”, noting that the new technology-driven administration system had sanitised and enhanced transparent governance in land transactions in the State.