Tony Elumelu, chairman of the United Bank for Africa (UBA), says Africa must stop seeing itself through the lens of victimhood and focus instead on long-term investment, leadership, and innovation.
Elumelu spoke on the sidelines of this week’s Africa forward
summit in Nairobi, co-hosted by France and Kenya.
“What we need in Africa in the 21st century… we need massive
private global capital coming into Africa,” Elumelu told AFP.
“Anyone that can help us address this is welcome in Africa,”
he said, from the United States and France, to Middle Eastern nations, as well
as Russia or China.
French President Emmanuel Macron, who attended the summit,
recently chose Elumelu to join the Africa France impact coalition, aimed at
promoting trade between French and African companies.
At the summit, Macron had announced a 23 billion
euro-investment plan across Africa — 14 billion euros of the investment from
the private and public funds from French entities, and nine billion euros from
African investors.
Macron said the investments would create 250,000 direct jobs
in France and Africa.
Arrests were made this week in Nairobi after a small group
of protesters tried to enter the summit, the first France has organised in an
English-speaking nation, accusing France of “neo-colonialism”.
Elumelu kicked against the criticism.
“We should stop this victim mentality. We should be
cognisant of the history, our history, but more importantly, we should commit
to the future,” he said.
“We should, to a large extent, let the past be. President
Macron was not born 100 years ago, this is a new age. And I commit to his
commitment to Africa, and I believe he’s sincere.”
The businessman said Africa’s urgent need is better
infrastructure and rapid job creation.
“What our young entrepreneurs need in Africa is improvement
in access to electricity, creation of mass transportation system, security, and
ease of doing business,” he said.
“These are the things that are important. They need jobs,
they need improved access to electricity, they need to join the internet… the
AI bandwagon.
“What is important is providing this enablement, this
infrastructure requirement, so that our young ones can take off.”
Many heads of state including President Bola Tinubu and
business leaders such as Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man, attended the
two-day summit
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