Yesterday, Dr. Awele Elumelu, in describing her husband, Mr. Tony Elumelu, said something I had always found difficult to put to words. She said her husband baffles her by the way in which he makes everyone feel as though ‘he is their own personal person.’ That is true, and it simply becomes the case for whosoever that offers himself to service.
And in his case, he has long transformed himself into everyone’s springboard. In the last 13 years, the conversation around the man Tony Elumelu has transitioned from business—since he has already established himself therein—to philanthropy.
This is understandable considering the exploits he is making in the sector within the period. Ordinarily, much as entrepreneurs contribute the most that goes into charity, his case is a rare one.
From l-r, AlbdulHamid Al-Gazali and Tony Elumelu
Seeing the successes in every thing he chooses to put his hands on, interest in his mental framework, thinking processes and personality is heightening. But if anything, Elumelu is a ‘complex’. A ‘complex’ because he is more sophisticated than anyone had yet appreciated, as admitted by Dr. Awele, his very own wife!
For instance, it is true that businesspeople top the list of world’s biggest philanthropists, but since we are in a ‘crooked’ capitalist system where everything is accepted in the name of profit maximization, market domination and outcompeting rivals—and this even celebrated as some sort of business ingenuity—you will never see the type of philanthropy Mr. Elumelu is pioneering in the last 13 years.
The familiar standard, even by the best, is ‘aid’, great as it is. Few offer scholarships with hardly surmountable odds which is nonetheless good because it empowers people—even if many times these people come from the same rich circle. Or how else do you except some of the products of our public schools to pass some of the scholarship exams I now see—as much as they can access and win Elumelu’s annual business grants?
The capitalist mindset, which is not a bad thing at all, is largely programmed to detect potential competition no matter how far-removed; and by following the dictates of the almighty capitalist manual, go on to ‘annihilate’ it, and mercilessly so.
As an extraordinary recruiter, this skin-cut businessman in suits can sniff potential greatness and competence beyond any bluff! But unlike the bulk in his exclusivist ivory tower world of ‘me-and-mine-only’, he picks every potential greatness to polish it, rather than strike it down or subsume it through recruitment as a way of “containment” or “canceling it”. But wait, where did you ever see true greatness getting scared by ‘itself’, if it is truly what it is?
In present-day Nigeria, he is one of the few who has risen so much above every parochial ‘localism’ or the common but rather petty question of ‘who’ or ‘where’ one comes from whenever he sees a potential for greatness in a person. This is why his approach to philanthropy is a brand of its own, in its targeting and accessibility.
Never has the world seen a man who has given so much of himself and of his secret success books, with so much grace, selflessness and generosity of spirit as did Mr. Elumelu.
This comes in the form of the Tony Elumelu Foundation, an Africa-wide $100m entrepreneurship program that seeks to identify, train and fund African business; first over a period of ten years and now a lifetime occupation. Specifically, he made sure the program is accessible to everyone.
Even though there are checkboxes to tick, the only determinant for Mr. Elumelu is one’s luck! He calls the program “democratization of luck”, nothing but that, which he said was also the reason for some of his breakthroughs as a person.
His overarching passion to rewrite the African story and support young entrepreneurs even though some of them can very well be potential competitors to his businesses in the long term, gravitates him to further turn the foundation into what is very well a ‘business school’, with himself as the ‘faculty boss’; such that more than funding, young and aspiring entrepreneurs are properly trained about the nitty-gritty of the business world.
In the course of covering the program over the last six years, I have interacted with many beneficiaries of the foundation’s annual grant who said they were more transformed by the trainings than the $5, 000 non-refundable grant.
Ordinarily this should not be surprising because a business curriculum pieced up together by a master in the game cannot do any other thing different; but what would leave one nonplussed is how such rare and time-tested nuggets are handed out so easily. Because his “make” is entirely “otherworldly”, he headlines some of these trainings himself!
It is impossible to accurately profile Elumelu. But there are a few things I can day or night always put my fingers on. First of all, he is an outrageously thorough systems thinker—and builder. His primary realm, the banking sector, is simply about systems building and systems management.
Every decision in the banking hall regardless of how small is clustered, as just a mere one may put big stuff asunder overnight. Man and machine operate around systems to provide solutions to an ever complex world, and he who is incapable of synthesizing or understanding this, should steer clear from business. Such a person cannot oversee the kind of expansion of, and smooth operations of for instance the UBA Bank, which today has nearly 500 branches in Nigeria, presence in 22 other African countries, UAE, UK and the US.
System is merely the underlying relationship that binds man and machine together towards a given goal—it is casually called in business lingo, even though sometimes erroneously, as brand or corporate culture; and since it is so, at the heart of it lies recruitment and deployment.
Elumelu is a recruiter-extraordinaire! This is my hidden source of fuel; that if such a recruiter can identify and offer to be my mentor, and even go beyond that to say I make him believe in the future of Africa, I am just too good to fail. With this mindset, I confront, and yes overcome, every tough moment that comes my way as an entrepreneur.
Without any attempt to philosophize anything here, what holds systems firmly, following proper deployment of man and machine, is communication. Much more than my work as an editor or generally a journalist, I do more of corporate communication consultancy, PR and communication programming as one of my primary works.
I took this following my interest, as one who majored in History, in the 20th century nationalist media propaganda in Europe. Following him, I can tell that Elumelu is both a great communicator himself and a believer in the power of effective communication, and he uses these skills to build and scale up so remarkably the corporate image of a long list of his businesses.
He can turn the whole world to his side! Corporate communication, broadly speaking, is nothing but the proper management of people inside or side of one’s business, the relationship between them and ultimately the situations they live in. I mean they are things like time, emotions, cultures, locations, beliefs and so forth that are generally inconsequential to the average mind but remain the very heart of success.
From l-r, AlbdulHamid Al-Gazali and Tony Elumelu
Dr. Awele scratched that off yesterday at the symposium organized to commemorate his 60th birthday when she said the way in which he makes himself available everywhere he is needed, home or at work, among many other things, still baffles her despite being with him for decades.
But this is all thanks, I think, to how he pays attention to even the smallest of details. He will make sure everything is beaten to the very last detail. It is through this way that he went on to build the UBA brand and finally himself as a universally respected “business model”. And he is now teaching the world how to do philanthropy! So best of luck and congratulations, master! The world needs only a few more of your kind!
By AlbdulHamid Al-Gazali
