Olawale Opayinka reveals how Eko Atlantic financial model was built

Founder and Managing Director of Makaya Consult FZE, Olawale Opayinka, has disclosed that he was brought in as far back as 2011 to develop the financial model for Eko Atlantic City, at a time when the now iconic Lagos development was still an expanse of ocean encroaching on the mainland.

Opayinka, who trained in actuarial science and has spent over 15 years embedded in the Eko Atlantic project, made the disclosure while speaking on The Coffee Table podcast, hosted by Ugodre Obi-Chukwu.

Eko Atlantic City is a massive, planned modern coastal city built on 10 million square meters of land reclaimed from the Atlantic Ocean adjacent to Victoria Island in Lagos, Nigeria.

What they are saying

Recalling how he approached the challenge of modelling a city that did not yet exist, Opayinka explained that his actuarial training equipped him to quantify uncertainty and project long-term outcomes.

• “That discipline then meant that we have the capacity to make financial sense of the future. So, that’s at the heart of what we are, what we do. We make financial sense of the future. We put numbers on abstract things,” he said.

He noted that he trained in the actuarial profession and sat professional exams with the Institute of Actuaries, though he clarified he is not a fellow of the institute.

He later became the first Black consultant to set up an actuarial consulting firm in the United Kingdom, working with the UK’s Financial Services Authority (now the FCA) around the year 2000.

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