Tonye Cole: Astute Business Leader Clocks 50

Recently, one of the world’s astute business leaders, Tonye Cole, celebrated his 50th birthday anniversary with splendour and class. Peter Uzoho examines Cole’s numerous contributions to the society

On January 15, 2017, one of the world’s astute business leaders, Mr. Tonye Cole, celebrated his 50th birthday in his characteristic grand style. Marking this great day, a classy party was held at the Civic Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos with the theme ‘Old School-Bringing the 70s Back’. The occasion which was well-attended by high profile business men, politicians and socialites was to celebrate and honour one of Nigeria’s golden boys.

Celebrating Cole no doubt implies giving honour to whom honour is due. It signifies the celebration of excellence, good vision, exemplary life, hard work, community and humanitarian service. This is because he has touched the lives of people in diverse ways. The society feels the impact of Cole on a daily basis and in various sectors ranging from the economy, education, social, health, sport and many more.

His passion for youth development and giving back to the less-privileged led to the establishment of his foundation, the Nehemiah Youth Empowerment Initiative. Through the Nehemiah Youth Empowerment Initiative, Cole regularly supports other foundations like the Down Syndrome Society, Slum2School Foundation, and Bethesda School for the Blind. He also serves on the advisory boards of various youth focused charities such as Africa 2.0 Foundation and Sapinda Rainbow Foundation.

Under his watch as the Co-founder and Group Executive Director of Sahara Group, the company has many landmark achievements. The most recent of Sahara Group’s intervention is the Food Africa project which seeks to pilot an innovative approach aimed at revamping the food sector to create new jobs for young people, increase farmers’ revenues, improve productivity, enhance nutrition and reduce food loss through more sustainable production practices. The project which has Kaduna State as the pilot location is being driven by Sahara Group, the Kaduna State government, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Fund (UNSDG-F) and UN Goodwill Ambassadors, brothers Joan, Josep and Jordi Roca of Restaurant El Celler can Roca, ranked among the best chefs of the world.

Sahara also unveiled its extrapreneurship platform to reach 12 million beneficiaries in the next four years through platforms that find, create and connect young extrapreneurs in emerging markets. Extrapreneurship involves creating value through shared thinking and leveraging internal and external strengths of school in Lagos.

These programmes focused on providing clean water, encouraging proper hygiene and sanitation amongst communities and primary school pupils. The Foundation also launched the Inclusive Education Project for Persons living with Disabilities partnering with Cedar Seed Foundation to provide scholarships to one hundred beneficiaries, who also received wheelchairs, elbow crutches, guide canes, hearing aids, walking sticks and sunglasses to drive cross-sectorial collaboration. This is made possible by connecting the right people and organisations towards providing sustainable solutions to global social problems.

Owing to his desire to save life through effective sanitary and health intervention scheme, Cole has led Sahara Foundation in the execution of several projects including the provision of borehole for clean water across Nigeria in conjunction with the Carter Foundation. This specifically was to ensure guinea worm eradication.

In furtherance of the quest to provide relief to underprivileged communities, Sahara Foundation donated mechanised boreholes in Asante Akim North District in Ghana, providing potable drinking water which has significantly reduced the cases of water borne diseases to that community. The success of this led to the replication of the model in 15 other communities in Ghana and 30 states across Nigeria.

The Career Counseling Programme, launched in collaboration with CARE Foundation of Singapore, organised an event where about 60 teenage boys and girls in Singapore were challenged to a more positive attitude to life. This was replicated and even taken further in Nigeria – Lagos and Abuja – through the establishment of fully equipped Guidance and Counseling centres in Eko Akete Senior Secondary School and Government Secondary School, Karu.

The Eye Care Programme demonstrated the commitment of the Sahara Group to the total eradication of preventable blindness in rural areas across the country. In partnership with Unite for Sight Nigeria and Light First Foundation Cote d’Ivoire, outreaches were carried out in 15 states across Nigeria and in various locations across Cote d’Ivoire screening thousands of beneficiaries, providing required treatments, prescription glasses, eye drugs and other medications whilst, cataract surgeries were carried out on those that were discovered to be living with the anomaly.

In the ‘Not one to turn a blind eye to community health challenges’, Sahara Foundation, in partnership with Biire Maternal Child Health Foundation implemented an all year round support programme aimed at reducing mother to child transmission of HIV. Over 200 members of Iba Oloja community in Ibeju–Lekki Lagos benefitted from the programme. The Foundation also partnered with ENACTUS Nigeria to create and develop the Sahara Light-Up Nigeria Challenge which aims to inspire students of higher institutions across the country to develop alternative energy sources to enhance sustainable power supply – especially in rural communities.

Born in Port Harcourt, River State to Pa Patrick Dele Cole, Tonye Cole attended Corona School, Victoria Island and later King’s College, Lagos before proceeding to King’s School, Ely, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom.

He is an alumnus of the University of Lagos and Universidade de Brasilia, Brazil, and a merit honours graduate of architecture. Cole worked as an architect for frontline Brazilian architectural firm GrupoQuartro SA in Goiania Brazil (’90-92) where he was involved in the design and implementation of the urban planning and city development of Palmas, the capital city of the newly created state of Tocantins. The city of Palmas was designed as a ‘green fields’ project and built up from scratch.

Amongst the projects he worked on in Palmas were the State Ministry of Justice HQ and the City Hall. Upon his return to Nigeria, Cole was recruited in 1993 as the Director of Operations EMSA S.A., a Brazilian civil engineering company, the 7th largest engineering firm in Brazil that was awarded World Bank-financed water projects for Lagos State Water Corporation. He was responsible for incorporating and setting up the Nigerian office, recruiting the local staff and managing the office. The company, in a joint venture with Sakamori Limited successfully executed three World Bank sponsored contracts valued at $58m and one ADB sponsored contract for Anambra State Water Corporation valued at $15m.

In 1996, Cole, in partnership with his friends, Tope Shonubi and Ade Odunsi, founded the Sahara Energy Resource Limited and became its Group Executive Director and co-founder.

Cole is also an active member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Advisory Council for Energy. Furthermore, in recognition of the role his company has played in shaping indigenous involvement in the African energy sector, Cole was appointed to the UN’s Sustainable Development Fund’s (SDG-F) private sector advisory group. He serves as a board member for several organisations such as Atlas Mara, Bloomberg TV Africa, Nigeria Shippers Council and Digital Jewels.

A motivational speaker, ordained minister, entrepreneur and firm believer in Africa’s inherent greatness, Cole has traveled vastly delivering numerous papers to African youths. He is a regular columnist for THISDAY Style and the author of Morning Reflections, an inspirational devotional.
Cole is an architecture alumnus of the University of Lagos and Harvard Business School’s advanced management programme. He is married to Dr. Sylvia Cole and they have three children.

With his humanitarian services, the youth, the less-privileged, helpless mothers and children, orphanages and the society at large have a cause to join in celebrating their own, Tonye Cole, for being with them, thinking about them and serving them.