Nigeria needs to harness opportunity in real estate and technology to grow economy—Gtext Homes MD

For Nigeria’s economy to expand at a desirable rate, the country needs to maximize the opportunities in the real estate industry, technology and agriculture sectors, according to Stephen Akintayo, CEO of Gtext Homes, a subsidiary of Gtext Global.

Akintayo, who spoke at a recent cheque presentation to three agric start-ups who emerged winners of the company’s conference agric pitch competition, noted that Nigeria is still struggling because it is yet to harness the potential of the three sectors.

“I believe this country will get better through three major sectors- real estate, technology and agriculture,” he said, arguing,  “if we harness the power of those three sectors, we’ll be able to build a great country.”

Gtext Group recently supported three agric start-ups with N1 million as they emerged winners of the pitch competition. The cash prize was split into three, with Agro Direct taking home  N500,000 as the overall winner while BBN Food & Farm and Farms Global took N300,000 and N200,000 respectively for emerging the first and second runner-up respectively.

Having established its presence in the real estate industry, and supported industry start-ups, Gtext Group said it thought of how best it could reach out to other sectors.

“So to celebrate our 12th anniversary, we decided that we will be supporting about 12 different sectors of the Nigerian economy with N12 million,” Akintayo said.

While the company has already given N1 million and training to the winners from its real estate pitch, the Gtext Global said it has an interest in encouraging young Nigerians, not only in going into real estate but also in the agricultural sector.

According to Akintayo, this is “because there is a lot we need to do with our youth; we need to begin to invest in the youth and we need to encourage them to go into agriculture.”

Wilfred Okafor, the winner of the Gtext pitch and the co-founder of Agro Direct, a Fintech company bridging the gap between buyers and sellers of agric products, said his company was grateful for both the growth capital and the training from Gtext Global.

“We thank Gtext Global for providing such initiative and being the winner, we plan on investing the money in our process line,” Okafor said.