Africapitalism as Africa’s Answer to Migration Failures

Obinna Chima

The recent rise in migrants’ deaths in Africa underlines the painful truth that economic despair continues to drive thousands into perilous journeys.

Every year, an uncountable number of men, women, and children gamble with death on treacherous routes in search of opportunities that remain scarce at home. These recurring losses expose not just a humanitarian crisis, but also the deep structural economic failures that force Africa’s brightest and strongest into exile, often with fatal consequences.

This matter, which has remained a concern on the continent, was brought to the fore recently after a tragedy occurred in which 68 African migrants lost their lives when a boat capsized off the coast of Yemen. A report from the United Nations’ Migration Agency revealed that during the boat accident, 68 African migrants died and 74 others got missing. The tragedy was the latest in a series of shipwrecks off Yemen that have killed hundreds of African migrants fleeing conflict and poverty in hopes of reaching the wealthy Gulf Arab countries. The vessel, with 154 Ethiopian migrants on board, sank in the Gulf of Aden off the southern Yemeni province of Abyan early Sunday, Abdusattor Esoev, head of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Yemen, had revealed.

After the incident, the bodies of 54 migrants washed ashore in the district of Khanfar, and 14 others were found dead and taken to a hospital morgue in Zinjibar, the provincial capital of Abyan on Yemen’s southern coast. Only 12 migrants survived the shipwreck, and the rest were missing and presumed dead.

Also, within the same period, another 70 African migrants were killed when a boat capsized off the coast of THE Gambia, in West Africa, in one of the deadliest accidents in recent years along a popular migration route to Europe. Another 30 people were also killed after another vessel, believed to have departed from The Gambia and carrying mostly Gambian and Senegalese nationals, sank off the coast of Mauritania recently. This Atlantic migration route from the coast of West Africa to the Canary Islands is typically used by African migrants trying to reach Spain.

Tragically, the IOM reported that migrant movements increased sharply in the first half of 2025 despite a rise in deaths and disappearances along the perilous Eastern Route linking the Horn of Africa to the Arabian Peninsula.

Indeed, each body washed ashore, each person lost to the sea, is a frightening reminder that Africa’s greatest wealth, its young people, are being lost on the waters of desperation, in their quests for better living conditions.

Besides rising cases of migrants’ deaths, Africa is often at the epicentre of overlapping global crises – economic shocks, climate disruptions, and geopolitical tensions – that compound vulnerabilities, because of its heavy dependence on primary produce. Additionally, the unfavourable terms of trade between the continent and the rest of the world, rising geopolitical tensions, and isolationist policies adopted by some developed economies are all pointers to the fact that Africa needs to rethink its development strategy.

To reverse this tide, African governments must begin to embrace Africapitalism as a transformative development model. Africapitalism places responsibility on African leaders and private sector actors to create homegrown opportunities that combine profit with social impact.

By building industries, investing in local talent, and embedding accountability into governance, Africa can transform misery into dignity and migration into choice rather than necessity.

Africapitalism, which is championed by the Chairman of the United Bank for Africa (UBA) and Heirs Holdings, Mr. Tony Elumelu, advocates for a form of capitalism that prioritises long-term economic and social value in Africa. It’s a call for the private sector to play a leading role in the continent’s development, not just for profit, but for shared prosperity. In the face of global trade uncertainties, this philosophy offers a beacon of hope.

Africapitalism acknowledges that the public sector is insufficient to drive Africa’s development and provides an alternative to government-only methods of market regulation and the delivery of necessary social services.

It calls for the creation of a new Africa via the initiatives of a resurgent private sector that will deal with societal challenges by starting companies and creating wealth for the local community.

Certainly, Africa offers countless untapped economic opportunities as the last frontier of capitalism. That is why the continent needs an endogenous growth model in which it manufactures goods for its markets as a first foundation, spreading out regionally from that base and emerging as an economic power in its own right through competitive advantage.

One way to do so is to invest heavily and simultaneously in job-creation strategies and in education systems that will create skilled workers to take opportunities that will be created by expanding economies.

Africa’s growth profile is, among other things, driven by its rapidly expanding consumer markets, as well as its private sector.  From Lagos to Nairobi, Accra to Lusaka and other major cities in the continent, with innovations in the mobile payment space, e-commerce, technology, agriculture and other critical sectors of the continent, promoters of Africapitalism strongly believe that African youths, if given the required support can compete with their peers in the global market, thereby expanding trade in the region. This would help lift the continent out of its present economic predicament.

Additionally, proponents of Africapitalism maintain that the private sector can also contribute to the continent’s development by making long-term investments in critical sectors that will foster social welfare and economic prosperity.

Elumelu preaches to anyone who will listen that with Africapitalism, Africa’s policymakers should “run government like a business,” with legislatures holding administrations responsible in the same way that they hold chief executives accountable. For him, the private sector should aggressively invest even in difficult socio-economic situations because the continent cannot flourish through government alone.

The founder of the Tony Elumelu Foundation strongly believes that entrepreneurship is a vital tool for eradicating poverty in Africa. More importantly, for him, entrepreneurship would get youths in the continent busy and keep them out of social vices, as well as create employment opportunities in the continent.

According to the Chairman and Founder of Heirs Holdings, Africa’s development requires massive private global capital to fire and power investments in the area of infrastructure, to create employment and eradicate poverty.

 Therefore, if Africa is to meet the demand for new jobs and to create wealth sufficient to sustain domestic economic growth, it must sharpen its entrepreneurial focus on the continent and make faster progress, especially with initiatives such as the African Continental Free Trade Area agreement. Again, long-term investments with social impact can offer outstanding return opportunities when compared with short-sighted, rent-seeking types of economic activities that have been Africa’s private sector for decades.