Business
By Anthony Isibor
THE speakers at the 3rd Kosofe Economic and Security Dialogue have called for stronger grassroots engagement, greater decentralisation and closer cooperation between businesses and government as part of efforts to address Nigeria’s economic and security challenges.
The speakers, including the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise, Muda Yusuf; Director-General of the Development Agenda for Western Nigeria (DAWN) Commission, Seye Soleye; and Convener of the Africa Business Convention, Ogho Okiti, spoke at the dialogue held in Lagos.
The dialogue focused on the theme, “Forging a Resilient Future: Balancing Economic Growth and Security Imperatives.”
Yusuf, who said he had identified with the Kosofe Chamber of Commerce initiative from its early days, stated that chambers of commerce operating at the grassroots are important to making economic growth more inclusive.
He explained that most businesses at the grassroots are small businesses facing challenges ranging from access to finance and management capacity to regulatory requirements and taxation.
According to him, businesses should not limit their interaction with government to election periods, but should establish mechanisms for continuous engagement with elected representatives.
He urged the Kosofe Chamber to regularly engage the local government chairman and councillors, members of the Lagos State House of Assembly, the House of Representatives and the Senate.
“We are not harvesting sufficiently enough the values that democracy should deliver to the people, and particularly to businesses, because we don’t engage and we tend to see democracy as just about elections,” Yusuf said.
He said continuous advocacy was necessary even when government officials appeared not to respond immediately.
“There is value in consistency in advocacy, in continuously speaking to what we believe needs to be done. At some point, people will listen. At some point they respond,” he said.
Yusuf said Nigeria had enormous opportunities and a highly entrepreneurial population but needed an enabling environment to improve productivity.
He urged business owners and other stakeholders to continue engaging government constructively rather than giving up on the country.
Insecurity cannot be solved with military response alone.
Soleye, who spoke from the perspective of insecurity and its effect on business growth, argued that Nigeria needed to address the underlying factors that sustain insecurity rather than relying mainly on military responses.
He likened insecurity to a swamp, saying the country could not permanently solve the problem by repeatedly treating its symptoms.
According to him, measures such as checkpoints, patrols and additional military hardware were necessary but could not, on their own, eliminate the conditions that continually reproduce insecurity.
“Security is not a war to be won; it is a ground to be green,” Soleye said, arguing for greater attention to education, employment, local governance and economic opportunities.
He said Nigeria’s security challenges did not begin with the present administration, but had developed over several decades.
Soleye traced part of the problem to the centralisation of governance following the political changes of the 1960s, contrasting it with the regional system that existed at independence.
He cited the former Western Region’s investment in education and local security structures as examples of what he described as a more locally driven development model.
He recalled that the Western Region introduced free primary education in 1955, with enrolment rising substantially within a few years, while a significant share of the regional budget was allocated to education.
He also referred to the former local security arrangements, including the local government police structure, as an example of community-based security.
Soleye argued that the subsequent concentration of authority and resources at the centre weakened the ability of regions and local communities to respond to their own development needs.
He linked the consequences to present-day challenges, including unemployment, insecurity and the number of children outside school.
He cited figures he attributed to UNESCO and UNICEF indicating that Nigeria has about 18.3 million out-of-school children in 2026.
Soleye also argued that inadequate economic opportunities could create conditions in which criminal activities become attractive to some unemployed young people.
“This is not an excuse for criminality. It is a description of an incentive structure,” he said.
He said kidnapping, illegal mining, cybercrime and other criminal activities had increasingly developed into organised economic activities in some parts of the country.
‘Businesses are paying for insecurity’
Soleye said the consequences of insecurity were directly affecting businesses through higher insurance costs, increased logistics expenses, food inflation and additional spending on private security.
He said Nigeria had spent substantial resources on military operations against insecurity but argued that tactical operations alone could not resolve the conditions that allowed criminal networks to regenerate.
He called for greater decentralisation and regional cooperation, noting developments such as the establishment of regional development commissions and security initiatives in different parts of the country.
Soleye cited the Western Nigeria Security Network, Amotekun, as an example of regional cooperation on security.
He also urged the Kosofe Chamber to become directly involved in local security structures rather than remaining outside government-led initiatives.
He proposed that the chamber should support the Lagos State Security Trust Fund, provide structured security information from businesses and residential communities and establish regular incident reporting channels that could feed into police and neighbourhood security intelligence.
He also urged the chamber to secure representation in emerging state policing and neighbourhood safety structures.
“The state police is coming, and you must be at the centre of it. There’s no point standing outside and throwing stones in. Be there,” he said.
Soleye said regional cooperation should also extend to economic infrastructure, citing discussions among states on rail networks and other projects designed to link economies across regions.
He said the country’s growing population made it necessary to rethink the existing governance and economic model.
Okiti urges Kosofe Chamber to map businesses
Okiti urged the Kosofe Chamber of Commerce to move from discussions to systematic organisation of businesses within its area of operation.
Speaking from the perspective of what he described as a “builder”, Okiti said successful development required three elements: divine or providential support, people who had gone ahead and could provide guidance and resources, and people willing to work with and support the vision.
He urged the chamber to map all businesses operating within Kosofe and categorise them according to size.
“You need to now map that area,” he told the organisers.
He proposed identifying small, medium-sized and large businesses within Kosofe, compiling their details and inviting them to become members of the chamber.
According to him, the chamber should make its platform useful to businesses by offering support and creating opportunities for regular interaction among members.
He said if businesses across Kosofe were systematically organised and engaged regularly, the chamber could become an important constituency in Lagos politics and policymaking.
“If those businesses gather here just once a month or once in three months, I bet you, within three years, anybody that wants to be governor of Lagos State will have to speak to you,” Okiti said.
The speakers’ contributions placed emphasis on a common theme: that economic development and security could not be addressed solely from the centre, and that organised businesses and communities had a role to play in shaping policies and institutions affecting them.
They urged the Kosofe Chamber of Commerce to use its grassroots position to strengthen engagement with government, organise local businesses, support security initiatives and build networks capable of influencing economic development in the area.
A.I
Sept. 24, 2026
Tags: 3rd Kosofe Economic and Security Dialogue Muda Yusuf Ogho Okiti Seye Soleye