Kenyatta commends Elumelu’s $100m African entrepreneurs’ scheme

Kenya’s President, Uhuru Kenyatta, has commended Nigeria’s entrepreneur and philantropist, Tony Elumelu, for the $100 million commitment by his organisation to identify, fund, train and ultimately empower 10,000 African entrepreneurs.

The African grown Tony Elumelu Foundation, Kenyatta said, is doing a good job supporting growth, while expressing gratitude for the selection of 74 entrepreneurs from Kenya as part of this year’s 1000-member entrepreneurship programme, which is now in its fourth edition.

“It is a great thing to see Africans coming out forcibly to build to Africa through initiatives such as this. Our continent is endowed with massive resources; we do not have to always rely on support from elsewhere,” he said.

Speaking at the State House, in Nairobi, during a meeting with Elumelu, who also doubles as the Chairman of the United Bank for Africa, said the continent needs more of Elumelu’s personality and drive to empower budding African entrepreneurs.

For Elumelu, the objective of the scheme is to create over one million jobs and add $10 million in revenues to Africa’s economy over our ‘decade of entrepreneurship,’ which started in 2015.He said the 74 entrepreneurs from Kenya are part of a group of 1,000 entrepreneurs selected from 150,000 applications from the 54 African countries.

Elumelu expressed optimism that the 74 Kenyan entrepreneurs selected by his foundation will champion entrepreneurial development in Kenya and lend their support to local initiatives that will drive inclusive growth and development.