This is your opportunity to reshape Africa’s future, Elumelu tells 3,200 TEF cohorts
Orisemeke Benjamin
The Founder, Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) Tony Elumelu, has said the focus of the Foundation is about transforming lives.
In his remarks at the unveiling of the 2026 cohorts of TEF training programme Sunday in Abuja, Elumelu said African entrepreneurs should see the training as an opportunity to shape the future of the continent.
According to him, the continent’s future was in their hands.
A total of 3,200 young entrepreneurs from all 54 African countries will receive funding, mentorship, and access to its digital platform, TEFConnect.
He said, “Let me also say to the young African entrepreneurs, I believe, and my colleagues share this, that no one but us will develop Africa. I also believe that the future of our continent is in your hands.
“This is Africapitalism in action, the belief that Africa’s private sector, especially its entrepreneurs, must drive the continent’s economic and social transformation.
“Beyond these numbers, TEF has helped redefine Africa’s development narrative—from aid dependency to partnership.”
While commending the higher intake of female entrepreneurs in the 2026 cohort, the TEF founder said, the programme is about spreading prosperity.
“We see it as a self-enlightened interest to make sure that everyone is given the opportunity to succeed. Because poverty anyway is a threat to all of us anyway.
“But the more prosperity we spread and we share, the more young Africans will mobilize, realizing that war-fighting cannot change Africa. It’s better for all of us,” he said.
On her part, Chief Executive Officer of the Foundation, Somachi Chris-Asoluka, said the TEF has been able to achieve results so far due to its impact assessment policy.
Data from the TEF fact sheet stated that over 4 million African households positively impacted, 2.1 million Africans lifted out of poverty, $4.2 billion in revenue generated by Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurs, and 1.5 million jobs created.
“A huge pillar of the work we do at the Tony Elumelu Foundation is a monitoring and evaluation and impact assessment. We don’t fund entrepreneurs that we cannot track.
“You know, we won’t have these numbers if we don’t take monitoring and evaluation very seriously from the time we fund our entrepreneurs. We’re tracking them to measure the jobs they’re creating, the revenues they’re generating, the innovation they’re driving in their different communities,” the TEF CEO said.
Chris-Asoluka said the Foundation is also engaged in advocacy with policy makers to address the infrastructure challenges faced by entrepreneurs across the continent. This is just as it is discussing with some of its partners to enable entrepreneurs to scale their businesses.
“We also know that African entrepreneurs operate in some of the hardest, most difficult economies around the world. So without the help of our founder, we do a lot of policy and advocacy in engaging policy makers and heads of states across the entire continent to make the right infrastructure to support entrepreneurs access electricity, good road networks, easing of our of our markets and our trade barriers so that entrepreneurs can thrive and scale and do even better,” she said.
