Don’t Relocate Our Businesses, Yaba SMEs Beg LASG

• Don’t Relocate Our Businesses, Yaba SMEs Beg LASG

The Small and Medium Enterprise operators in Yaba Industrial Estate, located in the Sabo area of Lagos State, have pleaded with the Lagos State Governor, Mr. Akniwunmi Ambode, not to relocate their businesses from the estate.

The governor last month disclosed that he would convert the estate into an Information and Computer Technology hub as part of the state’s youth empowerment programme.

The state government’s decision was said to have been inspired by the visit of Facebook’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, to Nigeria last year, and while at the Co-Creation Hub in Yaba, he donated $1m towards the development of ICT in the area. This was after investing $24m in Andela, another ICT startup.

According to the residents, after the governor’s visit to the estate in January 17 and his subsequent announcement of the decision to convert the place to an ICT hub, stakeholders were informed of the plans to relocate the estate to Ikorodu.

Some of the residents of the estate who spoke to our correspondent expressed fears that about 42 SMEs operating in the estate might be relocated to Imota, a remote farming settlement in Ikorodu by the end of 2017.

The Secretary, Yaba Industrial Estate Occupants Association, Mrs. Alaba Bamgbose, told our correspondent that members of the association were devastated by the development.

She added that the manufacturing activities in the industrial estate had helped families, trained young entrepreneurs and catered to about 3,000 employees.

She pleaded that since Governor Ambode had been a visionary leader, targeting youth empowerment and the SME sector growth in line with the diversification policy, he should consider the SMEs that manufactured locally and created jobs for Nigerians.

If the SMEs were to be relocated at all, she added, it should be to a well-structured location, complete with infrastructure, in line with the original 1958 plan of the Yaba industrial estate, which was for the purpose of hosting small scale manufacturers of Nigerian made products.

One of the residents, Kolawole Kamson, pleaded with the governor against the planned relocation, noting that it would destabilise not only businesses but families.

“Imota is just an agricultural settlement and the land there has been allocated. There are no habitable places in the area where people can move in with their family members,” he said.

Kamson argued that operators had established businesses and customers as well as infrastructure there with the estate having the advantage of being close to the city and market.