The Lagos state government, through its Employment Trust Fund (LSETF), has so far disbursed over N8 billion to 12,000 businesses, governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, announced on Friday, at Nigeria’s 61st Independence Anniversary celebration at the Agege Stadium, Agege.
Sanwo-Olu said that many of the 12,000 businesses assisted were led by young people, with more than 7,000 youths trained in entrepreneurship and business development.
He said that similarly, the Lagos State Research and Innovation Council (LASRIC) had also made millions of Naira available in grants to assist start-ups based in the state.
According to him, the state government was scaling up the various youth-targeted initiatives, and creating a favourable environment for businesses to thrive.
”We are financing small, medium and large-scale businesses, supporting agriculture, investing in start-ups and technological innovation, building skills and capacity across various sectors, and creating the right environment for private enterprise to thrive.
”Lagos is also home to the largest education-technology programme in Africa, the Eko Digital Initiative, which will impart coding skills to one million Lagosians, with emphasis on primary and secondary school students.
”Furthermore, our city-wide fiber-optic rollout will soon become operational, unleashing high-speed Internet for the use of the public and private sectors.
”I am delighted to note that we have seen and are seeing encouraging results from across all the areas and sectors we are working in.
”We will not relent in our ambition to create ever-increasing opportunities for economic growth and prosperity, for all the people of Lagos state, including the youth,” Sanwo-olu said.
The governor called on residents to continue to support his administration, as it strives to actualise the ”Greater Lagos of our Dream”, a 21st century economy in which all citizens have equal opportunity to realise their full potentials.
