The Labour Party governorship candidate in Lagos State, Rotimi Odunaike, has called for Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones to be developed as integrated geo-economic regions capable of driving collective prosperity.
Odunaike made the call during an Independence Day appearance on MiTV’s Breakfast Express Show, where he argued that Nigeria’s development challenges require stronger economic cooperation among states within each region.
He said the country should shift its focus from viewing the zones primarily through political and administrative lenses to identifying their economic strengths and creating systems that allow states to complement one another.
“I personally would not look at it from a geopolitical zone perspective because by bringing politics back into it, I would have looked at it from a geo-economic zone perspective,” he said.
According to him, states should move away from pursuing development largely in isolation and instead build complementary economic capacities and stronger regional value chains.
“How do we deliver within the regions? So that when Oyo delivers, Ekiti delivers, Ondo delivers, Osun delivers, Ogun delivers, and Lagos delivers, we will now become an integrated regional economy,” he asked.
Odunaike said such cooperation would enable states to pool their respective economic advantages and create a broader ecosystem in which residents and businesses could benefit from opportunities beyond individual state boundaries.
“All of our collective potentials get realised and then all of our people prosper collectively because we’re talking about collective prosperity,” he said.
The governorship candidate also pointed to the existence of regional institutions and development companies across Nigeria’s geopolitical zones as a potential foundation for deeper economic cooperation.
However, he said the key challenge was to move beyond the creation of such structures and establish practical systems capable of delivering genuine economic integration.
Odunaike said the geo-economic approach also forms part of his vision for Lagos State, stressing that the state’s development should be considered within the context of its relationship with neighbouring states and the wider South-West economy.
He identified Lagos, Oyo, Ogun, Osun, Ondo and Ekiti as states that could unlock greater economic value by connecting their respective strengths rather than treating them as separate state-level opportunities.
He argued that stronger regional economic linkages would help Nigeria move beyond repeatedly highlighting its economic potential and towards establishing the governance structures and partnerships needed to convert that potential into shared prosperity.
