By Ishaya Ibrahim, News Editor
President Muhammadu Buhari has commending the former chief executive officer of UBA, Tony Elumelu, for making the list of TIME Magazine 100 most influential leaders in the world.
Elumelu, the chairman of UBA and Transcorp, was named in the September 23 edition of the TIME Magazine along two other Nigerians; Tomi Adeyemi and Tunji Funsho, for impacting the world.
Elumelu earned his place in the TIME Magazine 100 for building Africa entrepreneurs through his entrepreneurship programme of empowering 1,000 young Africans with $5,000 each.
According to a tweet by the presidency’s twitter handle, “The presidency commends Elumelu’s vision of Africapitalism, which espouses that Africa’s private sector must play a leading role in the continent’s development through long-term investments, entrepreneurship, and regional connectivity, adding that it was just a matter of time before such caught global attention,” the tweet reads.
According to the tweet, Buhari says Elumelu’s commitment to the development of African youths, whom he has given a voice and empowerment, investing $5,000 in 1,000 young entrepreneurs per year across 54 countries, pedestals him as a visionary.
Adeyemi, who is also listed in the TIME magazine 100 is a Bestselling Nigerian-American novelist and creative writing coach.
According to Wikipedia, she is known for her #1 NY Times bestselling book ‘Children of Blood and Bone’, the first in the Legacy of Orïsha trilogy published by Henry Holt Books for Young Readers,which won the 2018 Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy, the 2019 Waterstones Book Prize, and the 2019 Hugo Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book.
In 2019, Adeyemi was named in Forbe’s under 30 list of influential young leaders.
The other Nigerians in the TIME 100 list is Funsho, a physician who had been spearheading the effort to rid Nigeria of the Wild Polio Virus. Nigeria is now free of the scourge that has paralysed many children.