Beyond the Geoportal: Reconsidering Spatial Data Infrastructure for Planning Information Governance in Lagos, Nigeria

The growth of electronic land services and map portals has renewed interest in spatial data infrastructure (SDI) across African cities. Yet a portal, however useful, does not, by itself, establish the institutional conditions under which geographic information becomes dependable for planning. This article revisits a 2014 assessment of SDI use in Lagos planning agencies and considers what has changed following the introduction of electronic title workflows, the Lagos e-GIS portal, enterprise coordination and reported state-wide digital mapping. It adopts a critical narrative review, drawing on the author's earlier Lagos studies, African SDI research, current land-administration evidence, the United Nations Integrated Geospatial Information Framework and recent thinking on the wider geospatial information ecosystem. The review finds that the technical environment has advanced considerably since 2014. However, public evidence is much clearer about systems procured and services announced than about common identifiers, metadata, update responsibilities, local-government participation, data-quality assurance and the routine movement of authoritative records between agencies. These less visible matters determine whether an SDI can support development planning, planning permit administration, building control, infrastructure coordination and environmental management. A federated planning-SDI arrangement is proposed in which the e-GIS office provides shared services and coordination, while legally competent agencies retain and discharge custodial responsibility for authoritative datasets. The article also reconsiders the earlier proposal for a Lagos Urban Observatory, positioning it as a metropolitan monitoring and accountability node rather than another data warehouse. The central conclusion is that Lagos has moved beyond the need to demonstrate GIS technology. Its present task is to govern planning information as a continuing public infrastructure whose reliability, accessibility and use can be independently assessed.