Entrepreneurship |
Feature
April - June 2015 •
The Lion King
• 15
not do that before, but we would
have to do that now. In fact, we
were just thinking of getting our own
Ambassadors in some of the countries
inform them. The second point on
the operating environment, we do
indeed have very difficult and harsh
operating environment in Africa that
makes it difficult for entrepreneurs to
succeed. In Nigeria and most other
African countries, it is said that over
95 per cent of businesses of entre-
preneurs die within the first year. So,
it is very difficult for entrepreneurs to
succeed, but we cannot stop aspiring
to become entrepreneurs because
the operating environment is difficult.
It is a two-way track. The first track is
that governments should do some-
thing about creating the right environ-
ment that would enable entrepre-
neurs to succeed. Our Foundation
realised that for entrepreneurs to suc-
ceed, there is a lot that has to hap-
pen and through the Tony Elumelu
Foundation’s Africapitalism institute,
we try to create awareness, discussions
and advocacy with governments to
make sure that we improve the oper-
ating environment. Take Nigeria for
instance, we co-founded the Nigeria
Competitive Council, where I am the
Vice Chairman, representing the pri-
vate sector, with someone from gov-
ernment being the chair. The whole
essence of the competitive council is
to help make Nigeria more investor-
friendly, make Nigeria a better operat-
ing environment for businesses to suc-
ceed. We have the hard and the soft
infrastructure operating environment.
Whilst power is the hard infrastructure,
we have judiciary, ease of doing busi-
ness in the country, even what hap-
pens at the airport and so many things
that we need to address. So, we are
trying to sort out some of these issues
through the National Competitive
Council. Not only did we participate
in establishing the Council, we also
provided money to pay the salary of
the chief executive officer for the first
three years. So, these are part of the
things that we are doing, because
we realised that for our entrepreneurs
to do well, the environment must be
right. In Sierra Leone and Liberia, in
partnership with Tony Blair and…. we
are working with the governments to
make sure that we improve the oper-
ating environment. It is a major issue
on the continent, but we have to
keep pushing. Beyond the infrastruc-
tural challenges we have in Africa,
entrepreneurs need to be trained and
they need to be mentored, because
others had survived in this same seem-
ing harsh operating environment. If
they could survive, then let’s see how
we can get others survive why we
continue to work with governments
on the need to improve the operating
environment.
In drawing up the criteria for selecting
the 1,000 entrepreneurs, was there any
particular sector you were targeting?
We were sector agnostic. When we
conceptualising it, I personally told
my team that we should not favour
any specific sector and we decided
to throw it open for everyone to com-
pete. But an interesting development
was that from the applications and
from those who succeeded, agricul-
ture and education were quite a reve-
lation. A lot of people were interested
in those sectors. But we didn’t have
any preference for any particular sec-
tor when we started.
Also, do we have some of them whose
concepts and ideas are based on
some of the challenges we have in
Africa such as power, ICT, etc?
The initiatives that people have come
up with and in deciding the once we
have chosen, we factored a lot of
things into consideration – your ideas
and the workability of your ideas in this
environment. Some ideas, we know
can actually help improve the defi-
ciency that we have today. You have
ideas on solar that can help improve
electricity and even information
technology initiatives that can help
improve communication. But the truth
is that we considered the likelihood of
this initiative succeeding in this envi-
ronment in choosing the ideas.
How low is the interest rate on the
initial capital you are giving to these
lucky 1,000 entrepreneurs?
What we are giving to these successful
entrepreneurs is $10,000 per person.
So, first tranche is $5,000 immediately
after the boot camp. That is just risk
capital for them to go and prove their
ideas. When you prove and come
back, then we give you additional
$5,000. There is no interest on that. It is
like we are taking equity risk. We are
training the entrepreneurs to succeed
for themselves and succeed for the
continent so as to impact on devel-
opment in the continent in so many
ways. So, there is no interest rate, but
equity risk. We are looking at those
who would be able to create wealth
beyond the risk capital.
Is there any kind of partnership you
are getting in terms of funding to sup-
port this programme?
The programme is 100 per cent fund-
ed by the TEF. Where we seek part-
nership is in the area of mentoring
because we have 400 mentors across
the world right now. Also, we have
seen that it can be very expensive
having people travel all across Africa
to the boot camp, so from next year,
we would seek partnership with air-
line companies who can just provide
cheap tickets for the entrepreneur
to travel. So, there can be partner-
ship along that line. Like maybe we
are having the boot camp and we
want a telecommunication company
to provide bandwidth for connectiv-
ity. But in terms of the $100 million, it
100 per cent funded by the TEF. We
believe that poverty everywhere is a
threat to everyone and that the less
of poor people we have around us,
the better for us all, for our communi-
ties, families, our businesses. We think
that prosperity should be inclusive and
should cut across. Many organisations
are interested in how they can support
our programme.
Tony O. Elumelu, Chairman, UBA Plc and Founder, Tony Elumelu Foundation (4th left); H.E. Macky Sall,
President of Senegal (4th right); Parminder Vir, CEO, TEF (2nd left); Amie Sow, CEO, UBA Senegal (3rd right)
with the Senegalese Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurs during Elumelu’s meeting with President Sall in Dakar
