Heirs Holdings chairman Tony Elumelu claims that when someone took a risk on him, he began his career in a position for which he was inexperienced.
In a post on X on Saturday, Elumelu said he was lucky, but luck should not be the only way an African talent gets a chance.
“I started my career in a job I wasn’t qualified for. Someone took a chance on me. Everything I have built since has been to repay it,” he said.
“I was lucky. But luck should not be the only way an African talent gets a chance.
“Our job is to democratise that luck!”
Elumelu said Africa accounts for less than 1 percent of the world’s “AI compute and 3% of its AI talent”.
“The constraint is not talent. It is electricity. We leapfrogged landlines with mobile. We will not leapfrog electricity,” he said.
The businessman also said the continent must address its electricity challenges quickly to avoid missing out on the digital revolution.
Elumelu said the race for artificial intelligence (AI) in Africa was also a race for megawatts.
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“My closing advice: To the youth in the room: start before you are qualified. I did,” he said.
“To the investors and partners in the audience: @TonyElumeluFDN seed capital has proved that young African entrepreneurs are investible.
“Now co-invest with us to take them to scale.”
On September 11, Elumelu said lessons from his days as a photocopier salesperson have continued to shape his approach to business.
Earlier this year, Tony Elumelu was urged by the family of 18-year-old UTME candidate Kingsley Akunemeihe to drop his case after the youngster was arrested over a widely shared social media post claiming that Elumelu had divorced his wife.
In a video posted online, Kingsley’s sister, Ngozi Akunemeihe, revealed that her brother had been arrested on April 18 while returning after his JAMB exam.
He has been held at the State Criminal Investigation Department for almost a week, according to her.
“Mr Tony Elumelu got the police to arrest my 18-year-old younger brother, Kingsley Chinanu Akunemeihe. He was arrested on Saturday, 18 April. He was coming back from his JAMB exam when he was arrested and never got home,” she said.
Ngozi stated that her brother did not originate the post but reshared it from another account on X, formerly known as Twitter.
She added that he deleted the post and issued an apology after other users flagged it as false and defamatory.
“He said he got it from another person’s handle and shared it with others. After sharing it, people called his attention that the post is fake and defamatory,” she said.
She added that the teenager later realised the post was false and took responsibility by deleting it and issuing an apology on his platform.
“He acknowledged he did something wrong and apologised for it. His apology posts are still there on his handle,” she said.
Despite the apology, Kingsley was arrested about 10 days later. His sister pleaded with Elumelu to consider his age and remorse.
