Lagos ready to drive your passion, Sanwo-Olu tells youth entrepreneurs

Babajide Sanwo-Olu, governor of Lagos, has assured youth entrepreneurs in the state that his administration will support them to nurture their dreams to reality.

Sanwo-Olu spoke on Thursday evening during an engagement with young entrepreneurs organised by Ayisat Agbaje, senior special assistant to the governor on development partnership and economic planning.

The event, which had in attendance young executives in Lagos tech space, telecommunications, fintech, banking, arts and creative industry, health, agric and logistics sectors, sparked conversations about transformational ideas that can improve society.

It was the second in the series of strategic engagements the governor had with young entrepreneurs in the private sector to foster the administration’s objectives of promoting youth inclusion in public governance through deliberate partnership and collaboration.

The governor said his administration will create an avenue for partnership where the government can initiate necessary interventions to support innovative ideas.

“We want to have this kind of engagement with you, where the government does not have comparative advantage, let it slow down and create relevant ecosystem where the private sector can take leadership role,” Sanwo-Olu said.

“We strongly believe it is the private sector that can create the jobs, while the government enables the environment to flourish. We want to leverage this platform to build strong and lasting partnership with you to co-create the growth trajectory we all want to see. One of the ways of achieving results is engagement like this.

“In the space of 32 years, we have seen advancement in digital technology, which has created a lot of opportunities across sectors. We believe young people of today have a lot of creative and innovative ideas that can change our society and bring us in tandem with modernity.

“We are having this conversation because we don’t want these brilliant ideas and energy to exist only in your minds; we want to create an avenue for partnership where the government can initiate necessary interventions, so that you won’t feel discouraged and be at disadvantage.

“The intervention could come in terms of government incentives, encouragement, public policies, funding or bringing your creative ideas in contact with investors to take them up for full activation. Our government in Lagos is about giving support to young people to nurture their dreams to reality. Many start-ups didn’t have the opportunity of technology decades ago.

“My own start-up idea came 10 years ahead of its time. If there was GSM revolution in the 1990s, the idea would have been fully activated. My charge is that, you must first believe in yourselves and ensure your creative ideas are genuine. As a responsive government, we are ever ready to partner with you in driving your passion.”

The governor said at 24, he initiated a disruptive shift in the plumbing sector, which revolutionised the vocation and aided its transition from the trade of unskilled artisans to professional occupation.

As a fresh graduate in the early 1990s, the governor said he incorporated “Dial the Plumber” — an engineering and business-centric initiative that leveraged the limited telephone technology of the period to create hands-on solutions in plumbing ecosystem for the growing oil industry in the Niger Delta.