Tony Elumelu visited Ghana as the first stop of his UBA tour of Africa, propagating the ideal of Africapitalism.
In continuation of his strategic vision of engineering a robust economic and business relationship across the continent through Africapitalism as a necessary tool for the socio economic development of Africa, the Group Chairman UBA Plc, and Founder of the Tony Elumelu Foundation, Mr. Tony O. Elumelu, spoke at the prestigious University of Ghana, Legon, before hundreds of Ghanaian youths, academics and entrepreneurs.
The serial entrepreneur who at the young age of 34, became the Managing Director of one of Nigeria’s top banks (Standard Trust Bank), reiterated the usefulness of preparedness.
He elucidated on the qualities that make a successful entrepreneur.
“The first is dedication, then vision, focus, ambition, and our ability to do things when we want to do them. We must always remain laser focused and aim to execute to perfection”, Mr Elumelu said.
These are some of the qualities that enabled him lead one of the biggest mergers in Nigeria’s history to date.
Today, UBA is amongst the top three banks in the country and rapidly growing in Africa.
He said: “I saw us grow a bank from five branches to 1000 branches with presence in 19 African countries and in Paris, London and New York. The lesson here is start small, have a purpose, be disciplined, and think long term.”
He went on to stress that entrepreneurship and not philanthropy, is key to achieving poverty reduction and empowering Africans to solve “our challenges” without dependence on aid from western countries.
He said: “Knowledge has no currency or value. It is priceless, and there is no greater gift than the gift of knowledge.”
Speaking further, he said: “Africans must come up with innovative, home grown solutions for challenges we continue to face.”
