16th July, 2017
By Kazeem Ugbodaga
An Infrastructure development company, Master Reality International Concept Limited, has unveiled plan to build the first Information Technology, IT Mart in Africa to be located in Ikeja, Lagos, Southwest Nigeria at a cost of N5 billion.
The mart, to be named Ikeja IT Mart will be built on three acres of land at Simbiat Abiola Way, directly beside the new Ikeja Bus Station on the axis of Otigba Computer Village.
Chief Executive Officer, CEO, Master Reality International Concept Limited, Lai Omotola said initially, 10 acres was earmarked for the project, but that the Lagos State Government took out seven acres of land for the Ikeja Bus Station, leaving three acres for the project.
He said the company believed strongly that in government’s effort to diversify the economy, one of the fastest ways of doing this was through IT.
“Why IT? Basically today, there is so much crave for content and content development. And where does content travel to? Content travels through data. It is now known that data would move faster than voice, that people will be using more of data than voice.
And in order for us to prepare for the coming demand and even the existing demand that is making our network today shaky, we have decided that we pioneering Ikeja IT mart as a way of solidifying the value chain end of the IT and communication industry.
“Why do we want to solidify the value chain end? We have come to realise the value chain end is very important in bringing us to global recognition as an IT super house.
And why are we situating it in Ikeja? Because we believe that the history of IT started in Ikeja and we must not lose that history,” he said.
Omotola said what the firm wanted to achieve was to build “our own Silicon Valley in Ikeja and in Lagos, such that anything concerning IT, the first point of call will be Lagos and Ikeja. So, we are bringing up an edifice that the globe will recognise as our own IT super house and the responses we have received from the market is superlative and a lot of major players are very excited because for the first time they are going to be seeing a structured IT mart, first of its kind in Africa.”
According to him, the mart was going to be a specialised mall that is basically for the specialization and operation of ICT, adding that the firm was building this to compete globally and to get the global attention that Lagos was ready for content development.
Omotola said the firm believed so much that IT would essentially and importantly drive the economy and that it was probably the only thing that would break barriers.
“Today in Nigeria, we are a building mobile technology, you find situation where you have everything on the go, and it is only technology that can give you everything on the go. People want to do transfer on the go, attend church services on the go, watch movies on the go, everyone wants to get information as it happens.
“For that to be sustainable, we need to build our capacity and we need to build our critical infrastructure and there must be a centre whereby this is where all the latest innovation and technology will be coming out to feed Nigeria and West Africa as a whole.
“What we want to do is to harmonise the entire scattered value chain end and concentrate them into one place to give unique services and also to compete globally. The IT mart is going to have a ground floor plus three levels having 1,000 shop outlets. It will have a multi-storey car park that will take 280 cars. Nice landscape, strategically located, two bullion vans, trucking bay, banking hall and the first IT laboratory that will be globally certified,” he said.
He said the site had been cleared and branded and that the firm was now at the stage of seeking approval from the government to move on with the project, adding that from the time of approval, the project would take 18 months to complete.
Omotola added that he believed that if the economy was going to turn around, “we need bold entrepreneurs that despite the recession, they come up with innovative ideas to generate activities in the economy.”