‘Over 50m informal businesses operating in Lagos’

Over 50 million informal businesses operate in Lagos, the State Manager for the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), Dr Olubunmi Kole-Dawodu, has disclosed.

He spoke at the stakeholders’ Forum on Economic Data Performance, organised by the Lagos Bureau of Statistics (LBS) at the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI).

He said, “We know that a lot of activities run within that sector, a lot of value including employment creation, revenue generation, income generation for their employees and all that. We want to harness all the blessings that come with that sector. This is a whole sector that the government has not been looking at completely.

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“The number of informal businesses in Lagos alone is above 50 million which means that some people run two or three businesses informally. Some are not registered officially, some do not have tax identification numbers, and so whatever they do is just informal or semi-formal in some cases.”

Kole-Dawodu emphasised the importance of collecting reliable data from the informal sector and incorporating it into economic planning and GDP calculations.

He noted that recognising the sector’s role is crucial for Lagos’ economic development and will help the government create targeted policies to support its growth.

The Permanent Secretary of the Lagos State Ministry of Economic Planning and Budget, Mrs Olayinka Modupe Ojo, highlighted the informal sector’s significant role in livelihoods and GDP.

Despite its resilience, she noted the sector’s under-representation in economic data, which hampers growth and integration.

She acknowledged the challenge of capturing data due to the sector’s decentralised and often undocumented nature, but stressed that the forum offered a valuable opportunity to bridge the gap by involving government, academia, civil society and sector representatives.