Lagos State, Nigeria’s commercial hub, emerged as the top destination for capital investment in the country in the second quarter (Q2) 2020 with $1,130.49 million. This accounted for 87.30 percent of the total capital inflow into Nigeria in the quarter, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
Ehingbeti, the biennial economic summit instituted by the Lagos State government 20 years ago, would no doubt have contributed to this success.
Ehingbeti is an ingenuous socio-economic apparatus that has contributed significantly to the evolution of Lagos State into a major economy in sub-Saharan Africa and an admirable megacity, with expanding potentialities. The summit, hosted by successive administrations in Lagos State since the beginning of the 4th Republic, has consistently redefined the dynamics of public-private sector collaboration for development across social and economic indices in the state.
“In the last two decades, Ehingbeti has played a pivotal role in the transformation of Lagos State, with useful inputs into Lagos State Development Plans (LSDP),” said Sam Egube, the state Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget, who is also a co-chair of the Steering Committee of the summit.
Ehingbeti, which started as an annual summit in the year 2000 and later evolved into a biennial event, was last held in 2014 during the governorship of Babatunde Fashola. The long period of hiatus seemed to have led to a decline in the rate of public-private collaboration in the state.
For instance, capital inflow into the state declined by 77.98 percent to $1,130.49 million in the second quarter of 2020, from $5,135.49 million recorded in the first quarter of the year.
The slowdown in the capital inflows could be attributed to the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic in Wuhan, China, which has continued to spread across the globe and the attendant lockdown to contain the spread of the virus.
As economies around the world begin to implement recovery strategies from the shockwave of coronavirus, the Lagos Economic Summit Group (LESG) is charting the path for the sustainable socio-economic development of the state at the Lagos Economic Summit tagged ‘Ehingbeti 2020’ scheduled to hold November 10-12.
Themed ‘For a Greater Lagos: Setting The Tone For The Next Decade’, Ehingbeti 2020 will provide a robust platform for deliberations on pragmatic optimisation of the inherent opportunities in Africa’s 5th largest economy and offer perspectives on how to manage the peculiar socio-economic landscape of the state in the coming decade. The three-day summit, which will be a hybrid of virtual and live events, will draw participation from various sectors of the economy and across the globe.
This year’s summit is aimed at reconnecting with the private sector, which is the bedrock of the Lagos Economic Summit. The quest to strengthen existing relationship between government and the private sector is one of the major goals of this summit since greater private sector participation in governance is a prerequisite for a functional state.
The Group has also refreshed the Ehingbeti logo to reflect the contemporary outlook of the annual summit without disconnecting from the economic heritage of the Marina and Broad Streets areas of Lagos, which served as the springboard for Nigerian and West African economic development since the European incursion in the 15th century.
Unveiling the new logo in Lagos recently, Olayemi Cardoso, co-chair of the ‘Ehingbeti 2020’ Steering Committee and former Lagos State Commissioner for Economic Planning & Budget, said the new Ehingbeti logo is an embodiment of meanings and expression of the LESG ideals.
“The convergence of colours in the logo connotes the essence of Ehingbeti as a participatory forum for integrating local and international stakeholders to exchange ideas and chart a path for the socio-economic development of Lagos State,” Cardoso said.
For private sector operators who gathered at the Ehingbeti 2020 stakeholders’ conference and logo unveiling held in Lagos, top among issues they want the summit to address include infrastructure, waste management, investment, technology and innovation, among other topical issues. They are looking forward to ideas from the summit that would address these challenges.
Egube, the state economic planning and budget commissioner, noted that Lagos State has implemented 193 out of 206 resolutions from Ehingbeti since inception.
He said the whole idea about the blue line, red line, and rail master plan are part of the ideas that came out of Ehingbeti.
“I can tell you we are on our way to deliver both the red line and the blue line,” Egube said.
“The fact that we are trying to expand our activities on the waterways is also Ehingbeti, Lagos homes ownership scheme, all came out of Ehingbeti,” he said.
Other achievements of Ehingbeti, he noted, include two Independent Power Projects at Akute, lighting up 242 streets in Lagos by the installation of 10,533 electricity poles covering a total area of 316km of street lighting as at 2014.
The impact of this street lighting initiative is a resurgent night life, a 24-hour economy and a blossoming of the entertainment, hospitality and tourism sub-sector of the state economy.
It was through Ehingbeti that the state government initiated LPG cooking initiatives to persuade the people to choose clean energy as the preferred cooking fuel, while a lot of solar initiatives were in place in schools, some work places and in many parts of the communities.
The state also recorded success in agriculture where 400 new farmers, graduates from the universities had emerged in that period and owned 350 hectares of land and their own homes built on their farm sites.
During the period, fish production has increased from 159,021 tons to 197,040 tons between 2012 and 2014, while chicken production increased from 537,480 birds to 653,017 birds within the same time.
“The summit has a huge history and it’s now firmly established as a credible forum for stimulating economic growth in Lagos State,” Egube said.
