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Tony Elumelu visited Ghana as the first stop of his 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 Legon University in Accra 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 expunged on the qualities that make a successful entrepreneur. 

‘The first is dedication,  then vison, 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’ Elumelu said.

These are some of the qualities that enabled Elumelu lead one of the biggest mergers in Nigeria’s history to date. Today, UBA is amongst the top 3 banks in the country and rapidly growing in Africa.  According to Elumelu, ‘I saw us grow a bank from 5 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, think long term’

He went on further 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.

In his words, “No one but us is going to develop Africa”. Speaking further he said “The development of Africa is up to Africans. Donors and partners can help, but the work of developing our nations is ours.

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