Since the Lekki Garden collapse incident occurred, sentiments have been wiped, there’s been blames and counter blames, yet no one invests to lose it overnight, and expects to remain in business.

Economy

Whichever way, the Lekki Garden brand has had its own image bashing via the incident that occurred in March 2016.

However, its contribution as a Small and Medium Enterprises, SMEs cannot be over-looked with the major role they play in economic development of countries, particularly in developing countries. For example, formal SMEs contribute up to 45 percent of total employment and up to 33 percent of national income, that Gross Domestic Product, GDP in emerging economies. These numbers are significantly higher when informal SMEs are included.

According to estimates,600 million jobs  will be needed in the next 15 years to absorb the growing global workforce, mainly in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. In emerging markets, like Nigeria, most formal jobs are with SMEs, which also create 4 out of 5 new positions. Even though finance is a key constraint to their growth; without it, many SMEs languish and stagnate.

A World Bank Group study suggests there are between 365-445 million micro, small and medium enterprises, MSMEs in emerging markets: 25-30 million are formal SMEs; 55-70 million are formal micro enterprises; and 285-345 million are informal enterprises.

Meanwhile, with Nigeria standing at 17 million housing units deficit currently, and chances are that the government will not be able to fulfill its campaign pledge to provide 1 million units for Nigerians yearly, the country cannot afford to run down any of the big players in the industry particularly if the company has no history of collapse or poor quality delivery until now. This was the view of a structural Engineer, Samuel Ekulumba and Sons.

At the moment, the Lekki Gardens is said to have singlehandedly delivered affordable housing units for 4500 families with an additional 10,000 in the pipeline in Abuja, Port Harcourt and Lagos. This is within less than five years that the company was established. It is doubtful that even the federal government can boast of such a milestone.

What is even more interesting about the philosophy behind Lekki Gardens is the founder’s avowed commitment to provide affordable homes for middle class families in posh areas which were hitherto populated by the upper echelon of the

society. The young company, has to a large extent achieved this aim of bringing comfort and confidence back to an otherwise vanishing middle class.