Babatunde Lemo, former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), has challenged community leaders across the country to develop a new framework that takes the long-term interests of their people into consideration amid the growing urbanization.
Lemo, who was guest at the 2026 investiture ceremony of the Sagamites Club, Ogun State, spoke on: “Sub-national economic hub as a catalyst for national economic development,” noted that “a strong economic centre can create employment, attract investments, stimulate surrounding communities, generate government revenue, improve infrastructure and connect local production to national and international markets. That is what makes the idea of a sub-national economic hub important.”
In what he called the new deal, the former Group Managing Director of Wema Bank Plc, urged host communities to register the landowners’ interest in perpetuity and ensure they become stakeholders sharing in the future profits of the businesses built on such land, as “the only way to avoid a repeat of the Niger Delta militancy or the Lagos Area Boys phenomenon.”
Lemo said like the host-community trust under the Petroleum Industry Act, the new deal, which he described as a win-win approach, if well crafted, will ensure that host communities in the Sagamu area become models for other states of the federation by making arrangements to expand cities, towns and villages, “so that host communities are not choked by the businesses emerging around them.”
The deal, he continued, should ensure businesses in the neighborhood give priority to locals in employment as “the only way host communities will feel the economic benefit of such businesses in their midst,” even as “companies operating in the neighborhood must conform to international environmental, governance and sustainability standards.
While saluting Remo elite and the club for what they have done so far, Lemo warned that industrial development is not wishful thinking, but a deliberate decision that require putting resources together.
He also warned that industrial development comes with its own challenges including increased demand from the new economic agents around that “pushes up the prices of goods and services, until many essential items are beyond the reach of the locals, just as too many factories could operate without proper waste-disposal systems, with emissions and effluents polluting the water, air and soil, in addition to security and social cohesion challenges such as introducing cultism, kidnapping, prostitution and internet fraud to communities that were once peaceful, among others.
He encouraged them to work with the traditional institution across four fronts by intensifying the provision of social amenities through the corporate social responsibility programmes of companies in communities, promoting rapid vocational, entrepreneurial and technical skills for youths in the various communities to “make them employable in the factories around us, (which) will reduce unemployment and the propensity to crime.”
Lemo also urged the club to partner “the government on the review of land policy to secure the future of landowners,” while insisting that companies in our neighbourhood meet international environmental and sustainability standards.
As part of the deliberate moves, he urged members of the Sagamites Club “to bring more industries to Remo, and to Sagamu in particular, because government cannot do it alone.
“The rural dwellings must gradually grow into urban cities through sustainable social amenities provided by the elite, such as the Sagamites Club,” stressing that “enduring development starts with the people themselves. The elite in the Remo zone should set the pace by investing their human and material resources into the development of their society.
