Elumelu Urges African Leaders to Optimise Natural Resources for Energy Independence

As the world continues on energy transition from fossil to cleaner energies, the Founder and Group Chairman of Heirs Holdings, Mr. Tony Elumelu, has enjoined African leaders to find the best possible ways to optimise the continent’s natural resources to address Africa’s gross energy insufficiency.

Elumelu, gave this advice on Thursday, during a media parley to mark the 14th anniversary of Heirs Holdings, which he founded in 2010, at the expiration of his tenure as the chief executive of the United Bank for Africa (UBA).

He said: “In the world we live in today there are answers you give and it will become controversial. But the truth is that for us in Africa at a time like this, we should set our priorities right because access to electricity in Africa is almost zero.

“There are current conversations in the world about how to provide energy. But if you look at where we are in Nigeria and Africa, we need all the energy combinations.

“We have so many natural resources that we need to annex to enable us to deal with energy deficit or insufficiency in the continent.

“So, before we join certain conversations, we need to assess properly and know where we are and what we need.”

He also used the occasion to speak on the current emigration of human talents from Nigeria to Europe and America, stating firmly that he was in support of the trend and not against it.

Elumelu said the development would in the future be beneficial to the country in the form of diaspora remittances in foreign currencies despite the dislocations it is currently causing businesses.

According to him, the “Japa” syndrome as it is known in Nigeria “affects all of us.

“When you interviewing or hiring young people you do not know who is going to stay with you for 12 months.

“But that will not stop you from hiring and training them. We need people to execute our strategies and visions.

“At the same time you cannot stop people from going if they believe that Canada holds better prospects for them. All we can do to stop them from leaving is to make our own environment attractive.

‘We are crying now but there will come a time when it will be beneficial to us as foreign currencies begin to come in from our people in the Diaspora. So, I support it. I am not against it.”

Commenting on the insinuations that Nigerian billionaires are overlooking Nigerian universities and prefer to establish endowments in foreign institutions, Elumelu observed that there are a lot of problems in the world and individuals would choose the ones they would solve.

He, however, clarified that his preference was to focus on entrepreneurship and economic empowerment of young peoples in Africa due to his convictions that the future of the continent is in their hands.

“We have chosen entrepreneurship and economic empowerment. We have limited resources. What we do is not out of the abundance of wealth, but just the need to do what we believe is right. We share prosperity,” 

Elumelu said, adding that the UBA group has a lot of interest in educational endowments.

According to him, the legacy that he would like to leave behind is improving lives and giving hope to our society.

“What we do at Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) is just our commitment to this legacy. We want to help others and democratise prosperity.

“We want to leave the world a better place and we believe we cannot achieve that by keeping money in our bank accounts. But by touching lives,” he said.

Elumelu traced the founding of the Heirs Holdings 14 years ago to a regulatory injunction that limited to 10 years the number of years one would serve as chief executive of a banking institution, which forced him to step aside from the UBA where he was the group chief executive.

He added: “When things seem bad we will not give up. Rather we will persevere. Be resilient. Convert your fear to hope and convert your hope to ambition and make things happen.

“If we were in despair 14 years ago we would not be here today. My gift to you on our 14th anniversary is this: do not give up in life. See the other side of the glass. Do not despair. Keep hope alive and work hard.

“In all that we have achieved, nothing will be possible without God. Next to that is having a great country. We must team up to build a viral, successful, great Nigeria.”

Speaking during the anniversary’s media parley, the Co-Founder of TEF, Dr. Awele Elumelu, remarked that the impacts of TEF’s programs have been enormous.

According to her, young Africans, “as Tony Elumelu has said, remain the life blood of the continent and we cannot transform Africa in our lives time if we do not prioritise and support them with mentorship, training, access to fund and continuous development.

“We have trained 1.5 million Africans; we have funded 20,000 of these young people across Africa and have invested over $100 million since 2015.

“These entrepreneurs have created 400,000 jobs and generated $2.5 billion in revenue because of the Tony Elumelu Foundation.”

Dike Onwuamaeze

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