"There Are Still too Many Non-Africans Speaking for Africa"

What was the inspiration behind the Tony Elumelu Foundation?

After retiring from UBA Mr Elumelu wanted to give back something to the next generation of entrepreneurs and business leaders in Africa. Tony’s story is the kind you don’t often hear. He was born and raised here in Nigeria, where he did all his education and has spent all his career, and he has still been able to be very successful and build a pan-African business that’s worth several billion. His vision is that if you can remove the obstacles that are preventing other African businesses from emerging, then a lot more companies like UBA can be built in Africa, become pan-African and help transform the continent.
The Foundation is quite unique in that although there are a growing number of foundations in Africa founded by Africans, we are African-founded, African-funded, in Africa and pan-African focused. I don’t actually know of any other like that. And part of what we want to do is set the policy so that if people set up foundations like this they get some kind of tax benefit.