At my second engagement at the 25th annual Milken Institute Global Conference in LA, I spent some time addressing the graduating class of the IFC - International Finance Corporation - Mike Milken Capital Markets Programme.
It was quite an interactive session with the young African and Global minds present in the room - I found some of the questions quite profound :
1. How would you encourage and give hope to young Africans to tap into African markets instead of emigrating out of Africa.
The future of Africa belongs to you, our young ones - and if we keep losing you, our youths, the continent will suffer. We are losing our young ones in business and we are all feeling it. Our brightest minds are leaving.
We need political leaders to create the right environment that will attract our people back and the time to do so is now. We need to provide access to electricity , digital access and connectivity as well as security of lives and properties. These are so critical. The rule of law is important too. We need to ensure that all of these are present for our youths.
My main advice to you is to succeed ‘in spite of’ the challenges. These challenges will not be fixed in a day and we need everyone to contribute their quota in fixing the challenges. If we keep leaving, no one will fix things.
Also, as youths, you should be vocal and exercise your civic rights, you must show interest in how you are governed, because in all African countries, those who can make sustainable change are our young ones. And they are over 60% of the population in each country. They have voting power. Speak up and be involved in the process.
2. What quality or values do you wish you had known early in your leadership. and which would you like to keep amplifying to the youths:
- Hard work, discipline, focus, resilience and making sacrifices. The story of my journey is today’s denial for a better tomorrow. Getting to the top is not as difficult as staying at the top. Not a lot of people get there and stay there, because of wrong prioritisation of values. You should be able to forgo consumption today for a better tomorrow.
This is what makes a huge difference. Consumption should always be a sub-set of the income we have. Don’t equate it. If you equate it, then there will be no savings, and capital formation will not occur. When capital formation does not occur, you don’t invest, and when you don’t invest, you stay where you are, and that poverty becomes vicious and reinforcing.
- Tell your own story - This is one of the reasons I am writing a book so that I can tell my own story. You should keep an eye on how you are characterised and how you are framed. If not, you will see a different persona from who you are being formed outside. When others help to frame you, it becomes an uphill task for you to correct.
Question: What achievement is Tony Elumelu most proud of ?
In the hierarchy of my own life, there was a time I wanted to break out of poverty. At University, I wanted to begin to enjoy myself more, be able to eat very well, lol. I moved past that to wanting to get a good job.
Thereafter, to starting something like what I have started; then being able to buy my own car, rent a good flat and own my own house. Having achieved all these and so much more, my focus is now about legacy and impact.
At some point you start thinking about legacy and how you want to be remembered. They say a wise and smart man decides what happens when he is gone, whilst he is alive. On the continent of Africa we have a lot of unemployment and insecurity - it will remain bad if we don’t do something about prioritising our young ones. If we don’t create economic opportunities and jobs, if we don’t help to share the wealth we have with others, we will not make any progress.
What we do at the The Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) through our $100m commitment supporting and prioritising young African entrepreneurs(over 16,000 of them thus far), is about empowering our young ones. This gives me a greater sense of fulfillment. When I interact with beneficiaries at the TEF Forum or elsewhere, the testimonies on the impact of the $5,000 grant per Entreprenuer gives me joy and excitement. That to me is worth living for.
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