At Davos, Switzerland last week, global business and economic leaders gathered, as they often do this early in the year, courtesy of the World Economic Forum (WEF), to look ahead at the issues that would shape the world of business, economics and politics.
This is a meeting where business executives who play a part in the discussions (that is, they aren’t just attending to listen to other people speak or discuss issues) are specially chosen by recognition for such roles. Very few leading Nigerian business executives attended last week’s meetings, and as a WEF-invited Media Leader to this year’s meetings, it was important for me to capture the mood of some of these Nigerian business leaders to speak to me about their thoughts on the meetings and the world generally.
In this edition of The Executive, therefore, I present to you my encounter with the banker and proponent of Africapitalism, Tony Elumelu, chairman, United Bank for Africa and Heirs Holdings. We sat together at the lobby of Hilton Garden Hotel in Davos and I put to him a few questions. Here are what he had to say.
I first asked him what his impressions were about the meeting. “Well, for me, I have met a lot of friends, old friends, and made new friends. So from that point of view I am pleased. However, I think we’ve come to WEF every year and we just talk and this year’s theme is all about global challenges, issues that we know, I think we should begin to move from talking to action. So, I want to progressively see a WEF where we start celebrating successes. So, like next year, I want us to provide a platform to those who have implemented key recommendations that have come out of WEF. Otherwise, if we continue like this and just talk with no significant action, I am afraid that people will begin to see this [WEF] as a place where we just come to talk,” Elumelu said.
Elumelu came across as starting a movement by his response to my first question, but it showed him as a man who is much more interested in the practical delivery of propositions, in particular the actuation of what forms the plank of global discourse. He is in a hurry to see outcomes emerge from talk because he knows that talk without outcomes does the world no good. I, therefore, wanted him to be specific in describing the kind of outcomes he would like to see after a WEF meeting.
“One of the global challenges from the themes this year is unemployment. We should stop talking about the implication of unemployment. We know it; we should talk here about how people have created jobs, so that others can learn. I don’t want people to tell us how they create jobs; I want people to say how I created jobs. So in a nutshell for me it is more of a call to action. What we need is a very good platform, for meeting these associates, partners and possibly form business alliances. This morning [22.01.15], Aliko Dangote and I hosted business leaders from across the world for two reasons.
The first was to talk about industries and opportunities in Africa, see what is hindering them from taking advantage of these opportunities and how we can, as partners or co-investors, work with them to take advantage of the immense opportunity. We did this because of our common belief; but let’s get the people to do it. So we have to provide this kind of opportunities, platform.”
On the issue of job creation which resonated strongly at this year’s WEF meetings, Elumelu had this to say: “I tell you, in line with my philosophy, of doing and not talking, The Tony Elumelu Foundation just launched a hundred million dollars entrepreneurship programme, which is meant to assist, to create 10,000 African entrepreneurs and we believe that if we achieve this, 10,000 entrepreneurs will help us create a whole lot of jobs, in the sense that at the minimum we create a million jobs; but we should do more than that. So for me that is part of concretising our talk, taking it from talking to action, to doing. One of the things I do is to tell you what I am doing, instead of saying what you can do. This also will help the young ones in creating jobs; it will actually help to enhance economic growth.”
He is one of Africa’s biggest investors having made forays into a number of African countries. As CEO of United Bank for Africa, he worked to make the bank Africa’s global bank with operations in 19 African countries. So I asked him what fears about Africa he was hearing other global business leaders talk to him about.
“We had a meeting with global investment managers, people who manage over a trillion dollar funds, and one of them talked about co-investment, asking if we had Africans who can go into co-investment with them. I told them that right in this hall, we have Africans who can co-invest with them. I invest in about 20 African countries, Aliko Dangote invests in about 12 African countries. So they have this concern. The second issue is the operating environment, making sure that it is conducive for business.
It remains a challenge, but there has been significant improvement. The third one is the issue of regulatory environment, about the leaders in Africa supporting business. They want to see African leadership supporting and working to professionalise the environment of regulation. Again, we let them know that Africa of today is not Africa of 15 years ago; that the economic policy regime is now more stable. Today if I want to do business in Africa, we can predict it better. So, there are concerns, but I think they need to know the truth because there is a negative characterisation of Africa in the media. That is why I would like to call on the media to present the true picture of the positive changes taking place in Africa.
“The information they have about Africa is so outdated. So we need to give them modern information about Africa. So, instead of all these negative presentations and the lies about Africa that are out there, let us continue to tell the story about the good things that are happening in Africa and how much change is happening across the African continent that are positive and are leading to greater things, especially growth and its opportunities,” Elumelu advised.
PHILLIP ISAKPA
Join BusinessDay whatsapp Channel, to stay up to date
Open In Whatsapp
