KROCCITYONTV NE WS:Osinbajo, others list values for business success

The Vice-President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, yester­day in Lagos told youths in Africa to imbibe the culture of integrity and discipline for nation growth.

Osinbajo gave the advice while delivering a lecture en­titled, “Transforming Africa through Entrepreneurship” at the Tony Elumelu Entrepre­neurship Programme (TEEP) 2015 Boot Camp, organised by the Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF).


“The TEF deserves all the commendation and support for putting this programme togeth­er, which is, putting his money where his heart is. This is an avenue for African youths to come together to learn and also network.

“Enterprise, commerce and society cannot survive without character, so the key word here is character and integrity, which also include respect for rule of law, prompt tax remissions, etc.

“It is a known fact that credit is the live wire of commerce and it behooves every entre­preneur to showcase integrity which reflects in the repayment of loans and keeping the prom­ises of quality.

“TEF has shown that social entrepreneurship is a key aspect of growth and the economy cannot grow without it and government is willing to sup­port the growth of the cause,” he said.
The vice-president urged the participants to imitate the ex­amples laid by the foundation to support the cause of national growth and development.

Also speaking, the Prime Minister of Benin Republic, Mr Lionel Zinsou, lauded TEF for initiating the boot camp to build a generation of young success­ful entrepreneurs across Africa.

Zinsou said, however, that electricity was a major infra­structure that was militating against the success of busi­nesses in Africa. He, therefore, urged entrepreneurs to look into businesses of providing renew­able energy as an alternative means of providing electricity.

Zinzou also urged youths to embrace technology to grow their businesses, expressing his optimism in the growth of Af­rican nations through corporate and entrepreneurial growth.
The Governor of Kaduna State, Mr Nasir El-Rufai, in his address, implored government to truly show support for busi­ness by creating the enabling environment.

El-Rufai decried the state of insecurity in the country, say­ing that businesses cannot grow without adequate protection of lives and property, efficient law enforcement and basic in­frastructure. “Businesses need a functioning government be­cause no matter how rich you are, you cannot build your own refinery, road network and so on,” he said.

The Managing Director of Bank of Industry (BoI), Mr Rasheed Olaoluwa, at the panel discussion, assured beneficia­ries of the seed capital initiative of adequate support and more loans from BoI.
He said that the bank had formed cluster loans for some sectors like fashion, agriculture and Nollywood, which the en­trepreneurs could benefit from.

The Chairman of TEF, Mr Tony Elumelu, said the boot camp was an initiative to sup­port youths across Africa with seed capital, networking and most importantly, the ethics of business.

“The major aspect that makes me tick is that we want to show African youths and the world that we can succeed, despite the harsh environment around here. Our main highlight was hammering on the main in­gredients of succeeding in busi­ness which include hard work, discipline, resilience and know­ing the rule of your business.

“Failure is part of business, that is why emotional and work­place intelligence are part of our training modules for the boot camp,” Elumelu said.
“After this exercise, there is also a formidable monitoring of the fund capital that would be given out and other forms of support would also be given.

The foundation, he said, lauded the present administra­tion and its development part­ners for lending their voices of support for the cause of job cre­ation through entrepreneurship.

“It is our duty to call them to order and demand the delivery of these promises by playing our part as reliable business owners looking to build empires that would outlive us,” Elumelu said.

According to NAN the boot camp and training was organ­ised for 1,000 youths out of the 20,000 applicants who applied from 51 countries in Africa.