Globaltimes 
The Chairman of Tony Elumelu Foundation, Chief Tony Elumelu, has called on wealthy and influential personalities across Africa and beyond to pull resources together to tackle poverty on the continent.
Doing that, according to him will dissuade young Africans from exploring the risk off navigating to overseas via the Mediterranean sea.
Elumelu spoke live ( monitored via zoom) Thursday at the United States Institute of Peace and The Heritage Foundation fireside chat with Dana Banks, the Special Assistant to the President of the United States and Senior Director for Africa at the National Security Council.
He said about 16, 000 entrepreneurs have been churned out by Tony Elumelu Foundation, noting that the number is still a far cry from what can liberate African youths from poverty.
” We have 16,000 beneficiaries of Tony Elumelu foundation, still a tiny drop of water in an ocean. For us to make a kind of impact that will meet our optimism across the continent, we need to massively scale up.That is the message I bring to the table; let’s pull resources together to deal with poverty realizing that there is poverty in Nigeria. If there is poverty in Africa it affects everyone, everywhere.
“ The United Bank Africa board Chairman called for the coming together of well to do citizens and philanthropists to empower African youths.
“We need to come together to see how to make this change occur. I’m optimistic. The people we have supported, I see success. We need Marshal Plan,” he said
