The Lagos Economic Summit Group (LESG) says the forum earlier scheduled for November 10 – 12, 2020, will now hold at a date in the first quarter of 2021, in view of the current developments in the country.
The summit was conceived to provide a robust platform for deliberations on pragmatic optimization 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.
A statement by the organizers also noted the summit themed ‘For a Greater Lagos: Setting The Tone For The Next Decade,’ is now a component of the Rebuild Lagos Agenda.
The statement quoted said Sam Egube, the State’s Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget, and Co-chair of the Steering Committee as saying: “happenings in our immediate past have not significantly altered the focus of the Ehingbeti, but they have broadened breadth of discussions that will happen at the Summit and expanded the composition of stakeholders’ expected to participate in the summit next year.
“We have recently witnessed circumstances that were hitherto not part of our social fabric in Lagos State. These surprises have not only necessitated the postponement of the summit, but also compelled a methodical reappraisal of our social system, which Ehingbeti will address in the first quarter of 2021” Egube stressed.
Earlier in October, the group at different interactive sessions with their private sector counterparts and the media announced a date for the summit and refreshed the Ehingbeti logo to reflect the contemporary outlook of the annual summit.
Specifically, the logo refresh was to ensure that the summit did not disconnect 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.
Ehingbeti is acknowledged as the first institutionalized economic forum by any state in Nigeria. The Lagos Economic Summit is a public-private sector roundtable that started as a collaborative effort between the Lagos State Government and Business Club Ikeja. Since the inaugural summit in 2000, the summit has gained useful insights from the participation of innumerable business and political leaders, private sector players, renowned economists, notable development experts, and outstanding scholars.
The summit 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 expandingpotentialities.
Hosted by successive administrations in Lagos State since the beginning of the 4th Republic, Ehingbeti has consistently redefined the dynamics of public-private sector collaboration for development across social and economic indices in Lagos State.