What Responsible For Acceptability Of My Africapitalism Philosophy – Tony Elumelu
African leading investor and chairman of Heirs Holdings Group, Tony Elumelu has revealed reasons why quite a number of people across the continent of Africa have keyed into his philosophy of Africapitalism.
The founder of Heirs Holdings – founded in 2010, a Nigerian conglomerate with investments in financial services, Power, hospitality, Oil and Gas, and more – said “I think one of the reasons Africapitalism has been accepted and being practiced by quite a number of people is because we don’t just preach, we don’t just theorize, we practice.
The foremost businessman who disclosed his Africapitalism philosophy to be a product of experience made the revelation during a fireside chat on ‘How Africapitalism Drives Inclusive Growth” with Richard Attias, Chairman of the FII Institute at the 7th edition of the Future Investment Initiative: The New Compass in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
The event where the foremost African Philanthropist was a guest of Yasir bin Othman Al-Rumayyan, Governor of the Public Investment Fund (PIF) and Richard Attias took place on Tuesday, October 24, 2023.
”Africapitalism sells from my experience. I’m African, born in Africa, bred in Africa and I’ve done business in Africa. And I’ve come to see firsthand the level of poverty on the continent. I’ve come to see the energy, the youths, the aspirations of our young ones. It’s a continent of about 1.4billion people and the average age is about 20 years old. So you can imagine the type of continent we have. Yet joblessness remains an issue, lack of access to economic opportunity, lack of access to healthcare… and so all of these I’ve seen in my own life story, how I got to where I am today. In Africa I realized the private sector… we do have a role to play in developing the continent. And not just one person, not just government alone… we should not have any entitlement mentality that some people will come to develop the continent for us”, Mr Elumelu gave an insight into how his philosophy of Africapitalism came to be.
Detailing his business model as a private investor who believes in Africapitalism the chairman Transcorp Group -with Transcorp Power and Transcorp Hotels Plc as subsidiaries – said “In our group, we have Transcorp which is the largest electricity generating company in Nigeria today. Transcorp has a combined energy-generating capacity of 2000 megawatts. So for an ordinary eye that is an economic investment that yields profit for the investors fine, I would support that. But more importantly, we all know that access to electricity is the single most critical factor we need to fix if we must develop Africa.
“For our young ones to go to school they must have electricity, for hospitals to function very well we must have access to electricity. For businesses to grow, develop we must have access to electricity. So that is Africapitalism in action. When you are investing you make profits but at the same time, simultaneously, not one waiting for the other. You also invest in critical sector…. Not just trading. We need massive investment in electricity on the continent. So an Investment in electricity not just for profitability,…. It is for profitability because we need sustainability, but more importantly, it helps to fix the challenges that we have. The challenges that hold us from taking off a continent. So that is the philosophy of Africapitalism”, The chairman of Africa’s Global Bank, United Bank For Africa (UBA) explained further.
