Buhari Commends Elumelu For Training, Funding African Entrepreneurs

President Muhammadu Buhari has commended the Founder of the Tony Elumelu Foundation, Mr Tony O. Elumelu, on his remarkable vision in training, mentoring, and funding entrepreneurs from all 54 African countries, describing it as “a truly lasting legacy.”

Buhari in a statement by the presidential spokesman, Femi Adesima, on Friday, noted that Nigeria remains very proud of Mr. Elumelu, a global icon, whose business and philanthropic interests continue to create opportunities for growth and development not only in Nigeria, but Africa as a whole.

The statement read: “I would like to specifically congratulate the Tony Elumelu Foundation on this extraordinary humanitarian act of funding 4,949 entrepreneurs!

“I am particularly pleased that this year alone, the Tony Elumelu Foundation will fund 1,522 Nigerian entrepreneurs from all the 36 States and Federal Capital Territory of the Federation. This unifying act by a private sector leader is commendable and worthy of emulation by others.”

The president explained that entrepreneurship and youth empowerment were important components of the work of his administration,

According to him, “we believe that they are the key to the future and recognize that by empowering our youth, we will build businesses that in turn sustain our economy.”

To all 2021 Tony Elumelu Foundation beneficiaries unveiled in Lagos this Friday, November 12, President Buhari congratulated them on the accomplishment and wishes them all the best in the future.

Primebusiness.africa previously reported that Tony Elumelu Foundation had invested $24.7 million in providing seed capital funding for almost 5000 entrepreneurs selected from across the 54 nations on the continent.

This was announced at an event to unveil the beneficiaries for the foundation’s 2021 entrepreneurship programme which was held in Lagos on Friday, November 12.

Chief Executive Officer of the Foundation, Ifeyinwa Ugochukwu said members of the team driving the entrepreneurship programme, tasked their ingenuity and embarked on a digital transformation agenda which succeeded in automating the foundation’s systems and processes, making it possible for any entrepreneur from any apart of Africa to apply and get a chance to benefit from the programme.

Her words, “We decided that our selection process will be 80 percent automated. We introduced psychometric assessment, business competency test, and we leverage our artificial intelligence machine learning, in screening, training, testing, scoring and selecting from hundreds of thousands of African entrepreneurs across all 54 African countries. And you can see today the product of our work and innovation; this is the spirit of entrepreneurship.