Lagos plans biggest technology cluster in West Africa

The Lagos State Government says it has concluded plans with Facebook and Google to construct the biggest technology cluster in West Africa.

This was disclosed on by the Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, during a tour of the two major innovation and technology hubs in the state, according to a statement

Sanwo-Olu said, “Technology is the new oil and the basic element for the Fourth Industrial Revolution globally. As a state with a massive population of young people, we need to play a major role in the development of technology, which is an enabler to leapfrog into rapid socio-economic growth.

“We take technology as an important deliverable in our government’s development agenda. For us to make a lasting impact in the tech industry, we said to ourselves that we needed to build the infrastructure to support the sector.”

According to him, the state is building a tech campus on a 22,000-square-meters land in Yaba, and is working with global brands in the tech space, such as Facebook and Google, to deliver the technology hub.

The governor said the cluster in Yaba would be a technology free zone that would aid the growth of funding and financing for the local tech industry and fintech space.

He added that the ecosystem would also offer free labs for startups to take their innovations from ideation to the next level.

He said the move was part of the state government’s efforts to increase its level of funding in the provision of technology infrastructure in the state, adding that the state had started a metropolitan fibre optic development plan.

Sanwo-Olu said, “We’ve started with phase one. We are running 3,000km of fibre. Lagos is certainly not up to 3,000km in size. What this means is that it will meander through all roads.