land information management system

and is one of the major natural resources we need to survive. It serves as the base and platform for everything we do. Though land is a free gift of nature, it is fixed in supply. In other words, the quantity cannot be increased as its demand increases, hence the necessity of developing an efficient and effective management system. Given the pressure on land which is caused by exponential population growth rate, rural urban-migration and environmental hazards, land information management has become the major concern of every government and policy makers. In 1991, World Bank (WB) reported that it took one hundred and thirty years (130) for the world population to rise from one billion to two billion. However, in 2015, it reported that given the growth rate, it will only take 15 years for the world population to rise from 7.3 billion to 8.5 billion. The recent trend in population expansion has made it crucial to take the issue of land management important. Thus, information on land has become an asset to governments, policy makers, investors and stakeholders.  

What is land information management?

Land information management is the process of recording, processing and accessing information of a land. Land information management system on the other hand implies the way and manner by which governments, property managers and land departments track data, manage documents and relate with stakeholders on land issues. As we earlier noted, land information management system has moved from cadastral to e-cadastral system. The e-cadastral or digital land information management system is a digital or computerized method of managing land information. This digitized land information management system provides easy, accurate, reliable and accessible information management platform through which land information could easily be accessed and payments easily made also. It is a web-based application used to keep and retrieve information on lands, buy and sell lands, register

and make payments for property taxes and obtain both financial transactions and information. It is a land information management system that holds a single repository of all the lands and land related information, provided to aid data keepers and users create, store, update, view, retrieve, analyses ,manage and publish land information. It further incorporate capturing, organizing, integrating and distributing land information in digital form. The central goal of land information management system is applying information, human and technical resources to achieve an effective land decision making by offering a good land information.

Several land information management systems solution have been implemented by different governments over the years. For instance, countries like Kenya, Uganda, Namibia, Nigeria etc have introduced the digital land information management system for effective and efficient land administration and management.

Problems of the manual land information management system

Before the digitization of land information management system in Nigeria, there were challenges of inefficiency and in effectiveness on land administration and information management due to the analogue system of gathering, recording and accessing of land information..

Nyongesa said that prior to the development of land information management system(LIMS),the process of managing and administering land information has been paper based manual system and that the volume of records generated by land management institutions   over the years made it difficult and almost impossible to refer to them or retrieve them when the need arises.

The manual method brought about cases of land fraud, land document forgery, document laundering, delayed and unattended application. There were cases of multiple allocation from different land ministry, mismatches in land use, trespass, illegal encroachment, insufficient revenue generation and collection, delay in issuing and processing land transactions etc.

In some cases the paper-based system of land information management made some buildings to either be without document or with duplicated document

which made it difficult and almost impossible to ascertain the real owners of those properties or collect the supposed revenue from the property owners.

Furthermore, records kept by the land survey department most often conflict with the one kept by the urban planning authority. There were no proper documents to show real property owners which also made it difficult to prosecute land cases.

There were also cases of shifting or illegal adjustment of boundaries usually by dubious owners to increase the size of their land. Tracking land revenue and accessing land information was very difficult as there were not much available data and even the existing ones were either mutilated or prone to damage.

In other words, data could easily be lost whenever there is fire outbreak or flood disaster. And just as Emeasoba in his article �Towards a proactive public land management in Nigeria�?� pointed, bad and poor land management system would have an attendant effect on the socio-economic development of a nation.

This was why government engaged in developing and implementing a land information management system that can bring solution to the problems. Efforts of governments and land management institutions were then geared towards computerizing land administration and information management, hence, the invention of the digital system of land information management in Nigeria and the manual system of land information management was replaced with the e-cadastral system.