Open Letter by African Women Victims of the Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) 

The Women Entrepreneurship for Africa (WE4A) II 2024 program is a partnership between the European Union, the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS), the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), and the Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF), under the “Invest in Young Businesses in Africa – Women Entrepreneurship for Africa” (IYBA WE4A) initiative. This program targets women-led micro, small, and medium green enterprises (MSMEs) and start-ups in Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Senegal, Cameroon, and Togo.

Its stated goal was lofty: to provide 1,000 African women with green businesses or ideas with training, mentorship, and a non-refundable seed grant of USD 5,000, with a promised total disbursement of $5 million. This announcement, made during the week of International Women’s Day 2024, reportedly attracted over 7,000 applications from various African countries.

After extensive investigation involving hundreds of women victims, irrefutable evidence reveals that the WE4A II program, like many other TEF programs, is evidently marred by gross self-dealing, outright misrepresentation, and fraud.

The TEF Playbook: A Summary

TEF has been operating a staggering scam — a brazen fraud, even by Nigerian standards.

They run a marketing-heavy campaign, especially online, targeting young entrepreneurs, particularly women entrepreneurs, promising “training” and $5,000 in funding. These shortlisted entrepreneurs are then required to open a funded account with UBA, a bank owned by Tony Elumelu. This requirement serves no purpose other than to shore up UBA’s customer base and deposit figures, directly benefiting Tony Elumelu.

Afterward, they claim implausible excuses not to disburse the promised seed funding to the young entrepreneurs. The cohort is then abruptly ended, and fictitious inflated numbers of beneficiaries are announced without releasing any verifiable public list of the funded businesses. Subsequently, they advertise a new cohort, attracting a fresh group of victims.

This cycle repeats every year, preying on unsuspecting participants. The entire operation has nothing to do with genuinely helping entrepreneurs and is solely designed to bolster Tony Elumelu’s financial interests while enhancing the public image of both him and his wife, TEF co-founder Awele Vivian Elumelu.

Key Findings from the Investigation

1. Gross Misrepresentation of Funded Entrepreneurs

TEF inflates the number of entrepreneurs it claims to fund, while only a tiny fraction of the promised funds actually reach participants. The Tony Elumelu Foundation has publicly claimed that 798 African women-led businesses have been granted USD $3.99 million to drive Africa’s green transformation. Evidence suggests that over 98% of the 798 women entrepreneurs announced as winners, after enduring an arduous eight-month selection process, have received no funding.

TEF has repeatedly refused to publish an independently verifiable list of women-owned businesses selected and funded under WE4A II. This deliberate lack of transparency allows intended for entrepreneurs to be siphoned by the very entity that claims to be a leading philanthropy supporting empowering African entrepreneurs.

Similar fraudulent practices were reported in past TEF programs, for example the 2023 program. This recurring pattern of exploitation is well-documented, with numerous accounts corroborating the allegations.

2. Exploitative UBA Bank Account Requirements

Participants were required to open accounts at UBA, a bank owned by Tony Elumelu, even when they already had business accounts at more reputable banks with better accessibility and no fees. To further exploit these entrepreneurs, UBA imposed high minimum opening balances and maintenance fees, effectively siphoning off the limited financial resources of these struggling women entrepreneurs.

3. Sham Training and Lack of Support

The WE4A II program failed to provide meaningful value to participants. Training sessions were poorly organized, with questions left unanswered. Support emails were ignored, and no genuine mentorship was offered. This suggests a lack of capacity—or deliberate intent—to leave participants disillusioned.

4. Deliberate Opacity as a Strategy

The Foundation provides no clear or consistent timelines for fund disbursement, and even when timelines are advertised, they are meaningless and frequently ignored without explanation. This intentional vagueness leaves victims in a constant state of uncertainty, second-guessing themselves while clinging to the hope that funding will eventually come.

5. PR-Based Cover-Up

The Tony Elumelu Foundation employs a series of public relations tactics to obscure its fraudulent practices and maintain a facade of legitimacy. One such tactic is launching new cohorts before concluding the preceding ones, ensuring a consistent overlap of cohorts to mask unresolved issues from previous ones. This strategy not only shifts public focus but also ensures that negative media coverage is overshadowed by the announcement of new opportunities.

The Foundation also requires victims to sign documents and provide testimonials before they have received funds. These testimonials are then used to present an image of a credible and effective program, despite the underlying issues.

More disturbingly, TEF resorts to intimidation tactics against whistleblowers, including legal threats, threats of violence, and even reported death threats in at least two instances. These actions aim to silence those who dare to expose the truth, ensuring that the fraudulent practices remain hidden from public scrutiny.

Our Appeal to the WE4A Partners

1. Demand the immediate public release of the list of 798 women-led green enterprises granted USD$3.99 Million, along with their respective countries.
2. Audit the full list of IYBA-WE4A 2024 applicants and the official list of the 798 selected recipients.
3. Demand the immediate resignation of Somachi Chris-Asoluka, CEO of TEF, to ensure accountability and transparency.
4. Investigate the roles of GIZ, OACPS, and EU officials and staff involved in the program, including Paz Velasco Velazquez, EU Acting Head of Unit for International Partnerships, for any potential involvement in abetting misconduct—whether through error, omission, negligence, or otherwise. Hold any staff accountable for their complicity.
5. Suspend all support and funding for TEF programs planned for 2025 and beyond until investigations are completed.

This program has failed to empower African women entrepreneurs and has instead exploited them for financial gain and public relations benefits. It would be hard to conceive of a more malicious, blatantly exploitative, and destructive scheme to the African entrepreneurship system.

Even more alarming is the news that TEF plans to launch a larger version of its program in 2025, targeting 4,000 young Africans, mostly women. This will not only deplete the African entrepreneurs’ already meager resources but also waste their time in the so-called “training.” It is now abundantly clear to all players in the African entrepreneurship space that African innovators are over-trained, over-mentored, but grossly underfunded.

While being an entrepreneur anywhere in the world is challenging, being a young woman entrepreneur in Africa is unimaginably difficult. It is disheartening to witness soulless schemes like this that exploit the dreams and efforts of young African women.

Further Readings:

https://faibatek.com/tef2023-fallout-600-african-aspiring-entrepreneurs-in-debt-and-frustration/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=AZHMI3_R7iS24FkS&v=rbs2DxAK5CE&feature=youtu.be

TEF 2023 program Quotes from :
https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/call-for-resignation-of-tony-elumelu-foundation