PROPERTY ARTICLES

Lagos-based realtor and First National Vice-President of the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV), Mr. Bode Adediji, highlights the much-vaunted Vision 20:2020 dream in the context of previous plans and what they portend for his professional colleagues. He describes the estate surveying and valuation profession as a crucial link that urgently needs to key into the strategic national development blueprint..

No matter how laudable and sustainable it may be, a master plan or blueprint or visioning requires certain fundamental ingredients when it comes to a successful implementation as follows:

Sincerity of purpose from all the stakeholders; the political will by the government and implementing agencies to crack some hard nuts, and execute, no matter what; abundance of financial resources, transparently released and deployed; availability of all categories and levels of manpower; and, technological capacity and computer commitment.

In the case of Nigeria, there is no doubt that most of these key ingredients are either totally absent or inadequate or misdirected.

Laudable as the aim and objective of Nigeria Vision 2020 appears to be and crucial as the roles and responsibility of estate surveyors and valuers maybe, one must admit that there are enormous challenges in the areas of implementation and sustainability.

Unlike what obtains in the western world, the perception of government and the general public of estate surveyors and valuers functions is still regrettably limited to that of estate agency. However, looking at the crucial core-competence of these professionals, the attainment of the goal and objective of Vision 2020 in the crucial area of housing, of property development cannot be attained without their active mobilisation and participation.

Nigeria can only boast of about 3000 qualified estate surveyors and valuers serving a population of 140 million people at the ratio of 47,000 per professional. This position creates a serious challenge as the professional manpower inadequacy is equally observable in other professions within the built-environment.

Unfortunately, the professionals in the estate surveying and valuation are yet to embrace the culture and practice of discharging their professional functions and responsibilities from the multi-disciplinary professional perspective. This can therefore be regarded as a major setback in the discharge of these professional services under the proposed Vision 2020. For instance, more than 90 percent of the practitioners concentrate on estate agency as main source of professional income neglecting the wider scope and prosperity available in the other core-competence areas such as property development, construction, private public partnership and infrastructural management.

If we are to surmount the above-mentioned challenges and deliver a crucial input for the implementation of Vision 20:2020, the following steps must be taken both individually and collectively.

We must as a crucial link key into this strategic blueprint for national development as soon as the implementation programme begins, even though there is the need for a rapid and continuous acquisition of knowledge locally and internationally.

While seeking increased relevance and participation in government circuits at the local, state and national levels, there is need to prosecute public enlightenment programme vis-à-vis the crucial but yet unpopular core-competence areas of our professional practice.

Similarly, we should overhaul our professional practice, culture and template to avoid over concentration of energy on the "bread and butter" aspect and move to the value-added section of our profession callings.

Apart from generating and pursuing co-operation and collaborative efforts among professionals, individual and corporate professionals, we should likewise promote our participation in investment ventures in the real sector of the economy, and facilitate international investment as a way of generating direct investment flow in the country.

Development of any human civilisation is essentially a product of its sacrifice; of its determination to embrace the proper values; of its willingness to improve its own conditions; of its resolution to work relentlessly until its aspirations materialise. No civilisation has the exclusive right to development; yet no civilisation has developed without the strong favour to do so.