Tony Elumelu at 61: Lessons on Enterprise, Fatherhood, Love

The arithmetic of Tony Elumelu’s ascent of the ladder of success is absolute, like the third movement

 of Beethoven’s Minor Quartet. His fortune has often been adduced to his sweet patronage by

fate. But that is simply one way to look at his lot. If he hadn’t shed sweat via honest labour,

providence  wouldn’t have graced his porch, writes Lanre Alfred  

From young adulthood to the present, the Chairman, United Bank of Africa (UBA), Tony Elumelu has spared no effort in the pursuit and attainment of his dreams.

Even as he clocks 61 in few days, March 22nd he has shown no traces of fatigue; as you read, the indices of fortune unite with the cosmic elements to grease his endeavours thus enriching him with unimaginable success.

Even fate acknowledges his genius. Perhaps because it is intrepid and eager, and the fruits of its achievement manifest beyond abstraction. Ask UBA rank and file. Ask his family too; his beloved wife and children to be precise.

If you ask the latter, they would tell you a story fragrant with depth and wholly resonant of sweet-scented childhood. For Elumelu’s children, everyday unfurls with a rare boon because they are prodigious wards of an exceptional father. Watching Elumelu play the part of a father to his wards validates the loftiest notions of fatherhood: that the heart of a father is a masterpiece of nature.

Some would call it the earthly root of all benevolence and wisdom. For some, it subsists as the hearth of parental love and care, priceless for the warmth it gives, and its luminous flare of compassion. The depth of Elumelu’s love for his children is matchless, and the reason is not farfetched. Very early in life, the UBA Chairman laboured to situate fatherhood at the core of his universe. Thus, whether within or outside the confines of the boardroom, Elumelu adorns fatherhood like an expensive cloak, taking ultimate care of every fibre and strand of its priceless habiliment.

He is, in every sense, unlike the proverbial father who evades the prickly and glosses over the painful. He is not the kind of father that teases and deceives. He neither toys with his children nor subjects them to bitter, manifold sarcasm when–as is always the case–sarcasm is the last thing they need. He is not the kind of father with pretension to knowledge he doesn’t possess; he is not the type of father that tries to impose wisdom on his wards with implacable gratuitousness. Elumelu is a far cry from a walking cliché. If you ask, he would tell you that a father’s presence in the life of his child is a priceless gift, that holds more value in the child’s life than any presents he might present to the child.

Elumelu understands that a father’s love for his kids is not bound by his expensive gifts to them but by his relationship with them. Thus, while he builds a titanic enterprise and an enviable dynasty to match, he painstakingly commits to sacrifices that establish him as the shine in his daughters’ eyes and the icons in his sons’ mirror.

Apart from being a provider and a leader, Elumelu personifies the endearing traits of the phenomenal father. Many dads could learn a thing or two from the billionaire chairman of UBA about parenting and raising smart, powerful, compassionate children primed to make the world a better place.

The Elumelu wards are indeed a lucky bunch. Unlike too many of their peers, they do not suffer the misfortune of watching their father fail and see his failures multiply like an explosion of virulent cells – failure to amass a fortune and the failure to keep it; failure to speak clearly; failure to attain repute; failure to develop the money habit; failure in attitude; failure in ambition and ability; failure indeed in everything.

Elumelu spares no expenses at pampering his children even as he sets out to raise them right. The endearing traits of a real man are personified in how he extends and redefines the yards of fatherhood goals.

Awele: His Pillar and Partner in Progress

The story of his journey into fatherhood would, however, be inaccurate without acknowledging the crucial role played by his wife, Awele, in his life. While Awele would always tell all those who care to listen that Elumelu is the perfect husband to her and a wonderful father to their kids, Elumelu also considers Awele a boon from Almighty God. The Chairman of UBA treasures Awele, like the proverbial jewel of inestimable value and the kids she bore him, like priceless heirlooms – this explains his predilection to flaunt them to the world.

Through fortunate seasons and her most trying spell, Elumelu stood unflinchingly by Awele, urging her to seek solace in God’s ceaseless mercies. Lest you begin to think that Awele must have been fraught with disaster, she wasn’t. The wife of UBA’s most powerful man simply rued her inability to bear him a son. Having borne him five girls, it was her heartfelt wish to bear the one of Africa’s most powerful banking moguls a son. Not that the Elumelus considered their girls lesser humans, it simply felt inappropriate for their lineage to be without a male scion, if you ask Awele.

Elumelu, however, was reportedly satisfied with his girls. To him, they meant the world thus he never shied away from treating them to the best perks his affluence could afford.

But while he appreciated his girls as the best gifts heaven could accord him and his wife, heaven blessed his household with two wonderful cherubs bearing gifts of life and indescribable joy.

After five beautiful girls, Awele eventually bore Tony a pair of twin handsome boys. It was a delight to see her glow with pride and contentment over her feat. Her heartfelt wish had been granted and unlike so many of her peers, she never had to endure heartache or abuse from her husband before she bore him sons. While friends, family and business associates rejoiced with the Elumelus, sources close to the family commended the couple for setting a good example by treating their daughters like special, heavenly gifts all along.

Elumelu, in particular, was applauded for exhibiting enviable maturity and tact. While so many other men would have taken mistresses outside wedlock and subjected their wives to emotional and physical torture for failing to bear them sons, the UBA Chairman stood lovingly by his wife.

His Philanthropy

Aside from his extraordinary capacity to cater to and care for his family’s material and emotional needs, Elumelu equally shows uninhibited love and support to ambitious youth and society’s less privileged. His inclination to help the impoverished and less privileged is borne from a belief that every privileged individual, group, and corporate citizen must contribute their quota even as the government must play its part in facilitating an enabling business environment for businesses and entrepreneurs to thrive.

He said, “First, it is a great responsibility of the government to create the right operating environment. Governments should try to make their business environment hospitable and attractive for investment. When the government makes the country attractive, when that country opens up, investors can invest. When investors arrive, they invest in energy, telecommunications, road, port, airport, and rail infrastructure. All the government needs to do is create the right conditions that will attract investors, and create the right environment to attract investment to the country.

“When this investment happens, in what we call Africa-capitalism, when the private sector invests in the long run, Investors profit, but at the same time they help provide the services and equipment companies need. It is therefore up to governments to continue to work on laws that guarantee property rights, creating the right macroeconomic environment that ensures predictability.” However, Elumelu is not all mere talk. To assert his commitment to his professed purpose, Elumelu devotes every resource at his disposal to wealth creation and propagation across Africa.

Like the proverbial nurturant spirit, the billionaire magnate and bank chief shoulders a self-appointed task to nurse both wilting and fresh seeds to full bloom. And that was why he established the Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF).

Elumelu understands that donations and philanthropic gestures from his ilk, while appreciable, must not be restricted to pitiable handouts in cash and kind, hence he established the TEF as a more dependable vehicle of spreading prosperity and providing a fairer economic system.

While he recognises that philanthropic giving plays an important role in tackling poverty, he adopts a more constructive means to ending poverty and fighting inequality via his foundation.

Founded in 2010 by Elumelu, the foundation has grown to become Nigeria’s leading philanthropic organisation, and this is attributable to its ingenious means of philanthropy including a culture of empowering a new generation of African entrepreneurs, driving poverty eradication, catalysing job creation across all 54 African countries, and ensuring inclusive economic empowerment.

Since the launch of the TEF Entrepreneurship Programme in 2015, the Foundation has trained over 1.5 million young Africans on its digital hub, TEFConnect, and disbursed nearly USD$100 million in direct funding to 18,000 African women and men, who have collectively created over 400,000 direct and indirect jobs. The Foundation’s mission is rooted in Africapitalism, which positions the private sector, and most importantly entrepreneurs, as the catalyst for the social and economic development of the African continent.

The foundation’s ability to fund, train, mentor, and network young African entrepreneurs, has also created a unique platform for catalysing growth across the African continent.

The robust ability of the TEF to reach entrepreneurs across geographies and sectors has enabled it to conduct innovative partnerships with the European Union, the United Nations Development Programme, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the United States Government via the United States African Development Foundation (USADF), The Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS), The French Development Agency (AFD), The German Development Finance Institution (DEG), The German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), The African Development Bank (AfDB), and Google, with bespoke programmes including targeting female empowerment and growth in fragile states.

Given the focus of the Tony Elumelu Foundation to promote entrepreneurship as the key to sustainable socio-economic development on the continent, the Elumelu Nigeria Empowerment Fund was made nonoperational in 2015 to fully implement the Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme.

Since the establishment of the TEF, not a few beneficiaries have emerged and blossomed across Nigeria and Africa’s industrial sectors thus driving an all-inclusive growth process across the continent. It may be said that Tony Elumelu, through his charities and youth empowerment platforms, has contributed in no small measure to the eradication of poverty and unemployment on the African continent.