Economy
As Africa nations continue to look for ways out of the continent’s social-economic quagmire, Chairman of the United Bank of Africa (UBA), Mr. Tony Elumelu, has made a clarion call to African leaders on the need to address challenges facing the booming youths population if indeed they are desirous of economic and political stable nations. Raheem Akingbolu reports
Hope rose for Africans, especially youths, last week as one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the continent and Chairman of the United Bank of Africa (UBA), Mr. Tony Elumelu, reeled out the opportunities in Africa and potentials in Africans at a well-attended event in Enugu organized by the Anglican Church Youth. The business man, who is also the Chairman of Heirs Holdings, an umbrella body of Tony Elumelu Foundation that has lifted many youths across Africa, however added a caveat; he called for empowerment of the African youths to unlock the opportunities.
Speaking on the topic; ‘Africa: Unlocking Our Potential, Securing Our Future’ the banker advocated for the need to unlock the potential of youths in Nigeria and other countries in Africa, in order to catalyse the socio-economic development of the continent.
While emphasising the fact that youth restiveness has suddenly become a ticking time-bomb in the continent, he mentioned among others how many social vices such as; extremism, banditry, robbery, senseless killing, kidnapping and political thuggery, have become means of livelihood in many African countries.
In a melancholic tone, Elumelu pointed out that Africa is the world’s youngest continent, with almost 60 per cent of the country’s population under the age of 25. In particular, the businessman stated unequivocally that in Nigeria, youths of 35 years and under are estimated to constitute 70 per cent of the population.
“However, the jobless rate in Nigeria has now risen to about 30 per cent in March 2021. Some states have as high as 56 per cent of all their youth population as unemployed. In Africa, the situation is not much different: We have 65 per cent of all Africans below the age of 35 and many of these people are not gainfully employed.
“The Covid-19 pandemic and resulting lockdowns have exposed the vulnerabilities in our population structure. We now have, as a continent, the largest young generation in history – this youthful population is Africa’s hope, it is our pride and it is our potential. The urgency and need to unlock the potential of this generation is imperative for the security of our collective future.”
To the Chairman of Heirs Holdings, to address this challenge, there is a need for a high sense of urgency, dissatisfaction to what is happening presently as well as a commitment to improving things.
He said: “We must accept that we face a crucial period in our history where youth issues must be the main and central issue of our time. Millions of our young people are entering the job market every year; and 20 million jobs are needed to be created annually to absorb new entrants in the labour market. Only about three million formal jobs are being created annually across Africa and this was even before the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic outbreak,” he added.
While speaking on the power of entrepreneurship, Elumelu said: “For me and my colleagues at UBA, at TEF and the across the HH Group, we have come to believe that entrepreneurship-the power of entrepreneurship- is key to harnessing the potential of these young Africans
“By so doing, we secure our own future. This comes from our own experience, first as entrepreneurs ourselves. And secondly as people that have committed a lot of resources at TEF (capital, time, personnel) tin helping create a new generation of African entrepreneurs. We are helping to give economic hope and opportunities to young Africans. And we speak not just as people that do this in Nigeria but in all 54 African countries, the TEF intervention cuts across all sectors and gender across the 54 African countries because we believe that prosperity should be shared as much as possible across board and that poverty anywhere is a threat to us all everywhere.
“The enormous potential of our youth, we must prioritise our support for small-scale businesses. Corporate organisations do well in employing people but there is a limit on how much corporates can do in employing the huge numbers of our unemployed youths. Therefore, capacitising and supporting small businesses, empowering our young ones and their businesses, in our own view is the most powerful means to reduce unemployment on the continent,” he said.
In a subtle and patriotic manner, Elumelu pointed out the link between the UBA brand and youths empowerment, especially in Nigeria, where it operates close to 700 branches in every part of the country. Beyond Nigeria, the bank is also believed to be serving at least 25 million customers and most of them are young ones across Africa.
“Our young Africans are proud customers of UBA, they use our platforms, cards and digital bot Leo for their transactions,” he stated.
Speaking on his excitement to know that he would be opportune to speak to the youths at the event, he reemphasised the operations of his Heirs Holdings Group and by extension the Tony Elumelu Foundation, which he founded years back with to encourage budding entrepreneurs.
“And because of this session, I will speak briefly about what we do at the Foundation.
The kind speaker that introduced me spoke about more people signing up to the Foundation’s Entrepreneurship Programme on tefconnect.com. And I firmly believe that applying to the Tony Elumelu Foundation is one of the ways to be empowered as youth, and I want to encourage everyone here to apply,”
At the end of the session the entrepreneur didn’t only inspire the 21,000 youths, who were targeted by the organisers, he gave them a leeway to tap from the opportunities provided by his foundation.
“Take advantage, visit TEFConnect.com and be guided on how to apply. Apply for the non-refundable $5000, which is our own commitment to actually empowering young Africans which we believe at TEF at the future of the continent,” he stated.
