The Coalition of Supporters of Democracy and Good Governance (CSDGG) has called on Rivers State Governor, Siminalayi Fubara to accord the Mayor of Housing and other investors to bring their innovative investment strategies to bear in the State.
CSDGG National President, Gershom Achor made this call recently while presenting an Outstanding Investor of Impact Award to the Chief Executive Officer of the Housing and Construction Mayor Limited, My-ACE China in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
Achor stated that it is time for the Rivers State Government to seek out and encourage serious-minded investors in the State to develop the State through strategic investments, pointing out that this is how it is done in most advanced countries.
He described the CSDGG as “a coalition of professionals, academics and other worthy citizens from the 23 local government areas of Rivers State”, saying that they have “interacted closely with the Mayor of Housing and found him to be full of innovative investment strategies and the burning willingness to move into action in the state”.
The CSDGG President admitted that the ideas oozing from the Mayor of Housing were enough to create a Dubai in Nigeria, asserting that the Mayor of Housing is an agent of progress and development.
In his acceptance speech, the Mayor of Housing, My-ACE China said there was the need to adopt an integrated land system that has every land in the State captured and gazetted with all relevant information on the land owners on it, adding that this would eliminate all land-related challenges in the State.
“The government needs to have a Rivers State Integrated Land System where every land is captured just like in Abuja. They call it Abuja Geographic Information Systems (AGIS). Every land is gazetted and captured in that system.”
“This will solve all the problems of land. They will know the indigenous owners of every parcel of land, and before you transact any land, you must get clearance from that agency. That’s one.”
“However, that agency comes with a caveat. It must be apolitical. Every suggestion I make to the government, I tell them that for it to work, it must be apolitical.”
He further proposed a community based clearing system wherein the traditional institution in the various communities across the State act the clearing house for all land acquisitions to ensure transparency, accountability and legality.
“After establishing the integrity of their local boundaries, they must create a strong land committee of non-compromisable individuals of unshakable integrity that will handle every land issue in that community.”
“The king must release a decree that nobody will sell or buy land in that community without clearance from the land committee.
The land committee must go round and capture a catalogue of all the lands within your community and who owns what, so that the moment somebody is pointing at a land, they already know this land belongs to the Azubuike family.”
“The land committee is telling you that they will get their own Indigenous surveyors to survey those lands and tell you this land is Azubuike’s land. It is not Okonkwo’s land. Okonkwo has no right to be pointing at that land to you.”
“And when developers, buyers, investors know that there is a reputable land committee in this community by the community going on air to publicize that ‘we are here oh’ to avoid land grabbers and they get permission from the government by taking that dossier of all lands to go and register to the government and surveyor-general’s office.
Before you issue anything, get clearance from us, we are the ones on ground, you will see land grabbers will run away.”
He expressed appreciation for the award, describing it as “an award of encouragement”, asserting that “I am greatly encouraged not only to ensure that we give Rivers State our best but to ensure that, that best is not hindered by any powers or any group”.
