Gravitas Investments Limited and Gracefield Island: What a Decade of Reclamation Has Delivered

Ten years after Lagos State approved the reclamation, Gracefield Island is a serviced island with roads, drainage and fibre ducts in the ground, and no completed residential building that any public source records. That gap between infrastructure delivered and homes delivered is the single most useful thing a buyer can know about Gravitas Investments Limited, the company behind it.

Gravitas is not a new or thinly documented company. Nigeria's Corporate Affairs Commission registry lists Gravitas Investments Limited as RC 364007, incorporated on 13 September 1999 as a private company limited by shares, with a status of active and not in liquidation. Its registered address is given as 1 Gracefield Island Project Site, Chevron Drive, Lekki, Lagos, the project itself. The registry carries 17 officers on file. Among those with dated entries are Olukemi Babalola, recorded as a shareholder since 2007 and a director since 2017, and Bada Shehu, recorded as a shareholder since 2007. The recruitment platform Adexen, which hosts a company profile, describes Gravitas as incorporated in 1999 and says it shifted from property investment to city development in 2006, with staff numbering between 11 and 50.

What was announced

Gracefield Island sits at the end of Chevron Drive in Lekki, reached by a landbridge the company says runs 2.3 kilometres into the Lagos Lagoon from the Chevron shoreline. Lagos State approved the development in 2016. The plan was for roughly 100 hectares of reclaimed land designed to hold between 10,000 and 25,000 residents. The Dutch marine engineering contractor Van Oord completed reclamation of about 30 hectares at 1.8 metres finished height in 2016.

The scale figure has moved. Wikipedia's entry and Lagos State's own framing put the reclamation at 100 hectares. The company's current project page describes 120 hectares in the early phase, with expansion potential inside the Lekki master plan. A buyer comparing marketing material from different years should expect that number to vary, and should ask which hectares are covered by which approval.

What has been delivered

The most detailed public accounting came from BusinessDay on 7 February 2023, in a piece by senior real estate analyst Chuka Uroko. It reported approximately 100 hectares reclaimed, more than 20 billion naira spent on infrastructure alone, four kilometres of paved walkways and cycle lanes, an underground drainage system, and underground sleeves for fibre optic cable, with all cabling planned below ground rather than on overhead poles. Peter Stephenson, described as Executive Director for Innovation and Sustainability at Gravitas Investments, was quoted saying the company had invested over 20 billion naira on infrastructure and expected to spend more. The article said a vibrant community was expected by 2024.

That 2024 target is the date worth holding onto. An earlier BusinessDay feature described site office buildings as nearing completion and flood studies projecting up to 100 years ahead. As of September 2026, searches of press coverage, the company's own website and Nigerian property portals turned up no report of a completed and handed-over residential building on Gracefield Island. That is a statement about what the public record contains, not a finding that nothing has been built. Reclamation projects are slow, and Nigerian developers frequently deliver without press coverage. But a buyer being sold a unit on a 2024 community timeline is entitled to ask for a site visit, a completion certificate and a delivered-unit reference before money moves. The same announced-against-delivered arithmetic applies to every reclaimed Lagos island, including the one examined in our review of Dynasty Designs Ltd at Orange Island.

Who runs it, and who built it

Gravitas publishes a team page. It names Alhaji Nu'uman Barau Danbatta, OON, as Chairman, and Olufemi Babalola as Vice Chairman and Chief Executive. Leke Ojulari is listed as Director of Strategy and Finance, Olubunmi A. Adeyemo as Director of Site and Logistics Management, Olumayowa Tayo under Accounts and Finance, Ozoemezina Nwafor under Urban Planning, Olajumoke Owoyeye as Site Administrator, and Adedoyin Nwachukwu as Group Head of Administration and Human Resources. GPMC is named as facility manager.

The Gazelle News published a profile of Olufemi Olatunde Babalola on 23 December 2023 describing him as founder and chief executive of Gravitas Investments Limited. It records his birth on 29 July 1963 in Lagos, a law degree from the University of Ife, qualification as a barrister and solicitor in 1987, work at Natwest Stockbrokers between 1990 and 1992, and a return to Nigeria in 1996.

The contractor list is unusually specific for a Nigerian project, and it is the strongest signal in the file. BusinessDay named Aurecon of South Africa as main project consultant, Van Oord and Boskalis of the Netherlands as reclamation contractors, Terraview and Adebisi Ogunlewe of Nigeria on urban planning, and Aecom of Britain with Ward Hospitality of Nigeria as hospitality consultants. Van Oord and Boskalis are two of the largest marine contractors in the world. Their involvement does not guarantee that homes get finished, but dredging at that standard is expensive and hard to fake, which distinguishes Gracefield from projects where the reclamation itself is the claim in dispute.

Reading the 2023 enforcement coverage correctly

Anyone researching Gracefield Island will find a BusinessDay report from 23 October 2023 headlined on illegal land reclamation and a stop work order, and it needs careful reading.

In that report, Ekundayo Alebiosu, Lagos State Commissioner for Waterfront Infrastructure Development, was touring waterfront sites. He is quoted saying: "We are on Gracefield Island, managed by Gravitas Investment. And we have also been to Pocket Island nearby, and now this bridge point, and there are lots of illegal land reclamation happening here." He is separately quoted saying: "I have directed that they be served a 'stop work order', otherwise we'll have serious issues here; we reiterate our stand on zero tolerance for illegal land reclamation and dredging."

The BusinessDay article does not name who was to be served. P.M. News, reporting the same inspection on the same day, headlined the stop work order as directed at the Ojomu Royal Family. The BusinessDay piece separately describes Gracefield Island as government approved. We found no reporting that names Gravitas Investments Limited as the recipient of a stop work order or as the subject of any sanction. Readers should not infer one from the commissioner having stood on the island while describing infractions in the surrounding waterfront. Equally, the absence of such reporting is not a clearance, and a buyer should check current approval status directly with the Lagos State Ministry of Waterfront Infrastructure Development and the Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development.

What to verify before you buy

Reclaimed land carries title questions ordinary Lagos land does not. Ask which instrument covers the parcel you are buying and whether the state's interest has been formally released, a process explained in our guide to excision and gazette in Lagos. Ask for the layout approval covering your specific block, not the project as a whole, since approval for a scheme is not approval for every parcel inside it, a distinction that caught out buyers in the 176 estates Lagos flagged without layout approval.

Then ask the question the marketing will not answer: name a resident. On a project marketed toward a 2024 community, a delivered and occupied unit is the only proof that converts infrastructure spending into a home. Bektu (https://bektu.com) maintains developer profiles built around exactly this kind of delivery history, and the company record for this developer sits at Gravitas Investments Limited.

Gravitas has a 27-year registration, a state-approved concession, world-class dredging contractors and 20 billion naira of visible infrastructure. What the public record does not yet show is a finished home. Both halves of that sentence are true, and a buyer needs both.