‘Lagos population, housing deficit demand innovative approach’

The Group’s Head of Sales and Marketing, Metrospeed Emike Ntiokiet has emphasised the need for deployment of innovative approaches to reduce the increase in housing deficit in Lagos. She stated this during the visit of Civil Engineering students at Yaba College of Technology (YABATECH) to the sprawling 97-hectare lagoon-front Metro Smart City project site in […]

The Group’s Head of Sales and Marketing, Metrospeed Emike Ntiokiet has emphasised the need for deployment of innovative approaches to reduce the increase in housing deficit in Lagos.

She stated this during the visit of Civil Engineering students at Yaba College of Technology (YABATECH) to the sprawling 97-hectare lagoon-front Metro Smart City project site in Lekki.

She urged them to think beyond the industry’s status quo, arguing that Lagos’ expanding population and mounting housing deficit demanded a fundamentally different approach to development.

“In the nearest future, it’s not going to be enough to just have a structure. What will stand out are your infrastructures, not just the beautiful houses anymore. So that’s why we are very big on this,” she said.

Ntiokiet described the visit as an expression of Metrospeed’s broader commitment to nurturing talent, pledging that the company would continue to open its doors to engineering students and young graduates eager to contribute to Nigeria’s built environment.

“Metrospeed is big on capacity building and it is part of the ways to give back to society, especially to engineering students,” she said.

Dr. Omolola Adetona, Geotechnical Engineering lecturer who led the field trip said the visit was borne out of the growing concern  that Nigeria’s young engineers were losing touch with the practical demands of their chosen profession.

“Over the years, we’ve discovered that young engineers are not living up to expectations as compared with the sustainability of our profession,” she said.

She added that the visit was designed to show the students that civil engineering was a living, evolving discipline that extended far beyond lecture notes and whiteboards.

“There is a need to expose them to the environment. They need to see that civil engineering is going far. Studying engineering is not just sit in the class and write on the board - they need to see what the Y and the X they’re learning is turning out to be in the environment,” she added.

The site they were taken to offered a compelling case study. Metrospeed’s ongoing smart city development - a lagoon-front project incorporating fibre optics infrastructure, solar panels, a central water system, rainwater collection facilities, high-rise commercial buildings, and multiple entry and exit points - represents one of the most technologically ambitious real estate undertakings in Lagos State today.