By Bassey Udo
The Founder of the Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF), Tony Elumelu, on Sunday gave hope to the teeming African youths as 3,200 fresh entrepreneurs selected for the 2026 TEF Entrepreneurship Programme were unveiled in Abuja.
The unveiling of the 12th cohort of beneficiaries since the inception of the programme began in 2015 was celebrated as part of activities to mark Mr Elumelu’s birthday.
In his annual letter to commemorate the occasion titled: A “Story of Hope”, Elumelu reflected on the impact of the programme over the last 16 years, saying in a world filled with uncertainty, year after year, the TEF has been able to help him plant certainty in the lives of young African entrepreneurs.
“For a long time, I believed luck was something that simply happened to you. Then I came to understand: luck can be engineered. Opportunity can be democratised,” he said.
“Hope is not just a feeling — it is a system we can build,” he added.
He said his story of hope for African youths began in 2010, when he and his wife made a commitment
to empower young African entrepreneurs through the Tony Elumelu Foundation.
Since the inception of the programme, Elumelu said he has since realised that Africa’s greatest resource has never been oil or gold, but always its people, particularly the entrepreneurship and the ingenuity of young Africans as a driving force for the continent’s economic transformation.
Through the TEF Entrepreneurship Programme, he said he has witnessed young Africans, when empowered, create jobs, build sustainable businesses, drive innovation, and catalyse prosperity across the continent.
Although the Foundation’s initial goal was to identify, train, mentor, and fund 10,000 African entrepreneurs with $5,000 in non-refundable seed capital, he said more than 16 years later the success story has almost tripled that ambition.
“To date, the TEF Entrepreneurship Programme has disbursed over $100 million in seed capital to more than 24,000 entrepreneurs across Africa. 80% of the entrepreneurs supported through our programmes have scaled beyond their early stages, a dramatic shift from the years when typically only 10–20% of businesses survived long enough to grow. This means, four out of five businesses under the entrepreneurship programme succeed compared to one out of five globally.
“The impact has been profound: 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; 1.5 million jobs created, while over 2.5 million Africans have been granted access to trainings,” he said.
Beyond these numbers, Elumelu said the TEF has helped redefine Africa’s development narrative—from aid dependency to partnership, announcing that a total of 3,200 young entrepreneurs from all 54 African countries would receive funding, mentorship, and access to its digital platform, TEFConnect under the 2026 edition of the programme.
Elumelu expressed excitement that the selection process of the 2026 beneficiaries handled by the management consulting firm of Ernst and Young, through five stages, produced women entrepreneurs, which constituted
51% of the total entrepreneurs selected.
He said the selection process, which was
purely by merit and not quota, highlighed the strength of women through their ideas, the clarity of their business
models and the ambition of their vision.
“As we celebrate women’s month, this sends a powerful message: when opportunity is accessible, African women do not simply participate — they lead,” he declared.
Earlier, the Chief Executive Officer of TEF, Somachi Chris-Asoluka, in her introductory remarks, described the event as not just an announcement, but an affirmation of the impact of a vision.
She said the about 265,500 applications received from youths across Africa represented visions for a better and brighter future, from individuals who have chosen not to wait, but to create fresh stories of their ambitions.
The unveiling of the new beneficiaries, she noted, was to celebrate the shortlisted African entrepreneurs and the spirit of resilience, hardwork, capacity and immense talent across all 54 African countries.
“Since 2015 when the programme was launched, $100m has been disbursed to 24,000 young men and women who have started and skilled businesses across Africa and have created 1.5m jobs, generated $4.2b in revenue and lifted 2.1m Africans above the poverty line and 4.1m households positively impacted,” she said.
During the event, six TEF alumni from Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa, Kenya, Algeria, Mali and Nigeria took turns to share their success stories and progress reports on how they have transformed the seed funding, training and mentorship as well as coaching they received from the TEF into leading businesses across the continent.
She disclosed that the TEF would spend a total of $216m to fund the 3,200 entrepreneurs in the 2026 programme.
At the event on Sunday, 1,951 beneficiaries in the first of four cohorts supported by the TEF in this year’s programme,in partnership with Hairs Energies, Transcorp Hotels, Transcorp Power, and United Capital, DEG of Germany and SEME City of the Benin Republic were unveiled.
In May, she said another 100 entrepreneurs supported by the TEF in partnership with IKEA Foundation, UNICEF and the Dutch government.would be unveiled, while another 100 would be unveiled in August in partnership with UNDP and Rwandan Ministry of Youth and Arts.
In November, she said the TEF, working in collaboration with European Union, OECPS and GIZ, would unveil the last set of 1,049 beneficiaries across the continent who would receive $16m from TEF.
