The onus of attracting development to our communities and the need to diversify the economy rising from the consistence drop in oil price and other factors today is now upon us bearing in mind the inabilities of various levels of government to solely and evenly distribute their developmental plans to every nooks and crannies of their constituents.
All over the world, cities and their constituents have taken the bull by the horns in seeking, thinking and leading the way to creative real investment opportunities. Like Lagos City, New York City have 5 boroughs with Manhattan as the core of business, financial and economic centre. The difference in Alimosho within Lagos City is in its rising but unprecedented possibilities potentials. With the current estimated population of about 4 million, Alimosho is definitely core in the picture.
It is of keen interest of note that His Excellency Governor Akinwunmi Ambode desires to turn Alimosho into a Silicon Valley; with her expanse landmass thereby positioned herself as a viable location for investors and businesses.
The current leadership in Lagos State obviously has brought one significant lesson to Nigerians by her crusade for grassroot development which has been demonstrated by her numerous achievements which many have attributed to have surpassed the eight years achievements of the immediate past administration while many are already pondering on how Lagos will be at the end of the eight years of Mr Akinwunmi Ambode. The current national government may have also identified the need for us to retrace our steps as a people by her massive campaign on the need to patronise local made products.
Over the years, Alimosho has played key role as electoral World Bank where all efforts are geared towards winning election due to its population size. This has made her a factor in determining the political pendulum both at the state and federal election, yet the adjudged largest local government in Nigeria cannot boast of any major economic apparatus of the state government other than her numerous estates. Under the current democratic dispensation, development, Alimosho witnessed a boost during the eight year reign of Governor emeritus Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu with one of Alimosho’s son in the person of Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola as the commissioner for works who supervised the construction of some of the roads in Alimosho and that of Isheri/Lasu Expressway, however the development nose-dived during the immediate past administration owing to his strong believe in developing the urban areas at the expense and degeneration of the rural areas
The Alimosho Economic Summit is deemed necessary owing to the rate of development recorded under the current administration which has embarked on massive infrastructural development amongst which are completion of the abandoned Ayobo-Ipaja road, Idimu-Ejigbo road, Egbe bridge, the on-going construction of Aboru/Ipaja link bridge and the multibillion Naira construction of Abule-Egba overhead bridge, Giwa/Abule Egba road and many more. These projects are obviously aimed at opening up and reducing the man hours in moving round this most populated LGA.
With such investment by the state government in such a short period and her zeal to do even more which include the extension of the BRT route, the inclusion of the Alimosho axis of the Abeokuta Expressway in the Light Up Lagos Project and the proposed relocation of the popular Computer Village to Katangora area of Agbado-Okeodo LCDA which is expected to house many facilities like Helipad, Hotels and production chains of ICT related products. Alimosho obviously is now the new business haven of Lagos State; hence the effort to begin attracting investors is one of the aims of The Alimosho Economic Summit.
With all these, there will be no other better time to have investors explore the embedded opportunities in Alimosho and to also reawaken the sense of her residents by believing in that no government will do it for Alimosho.
