I explained to African Business why in the current crisis, originating transactions is more important than ever. - Chinelo Anohu-Amazu

Talent is not the issue on the continent. We have it in abundance. We are naturally blessed in sports and in the creatives.

First let me say that risks do exist. It would be naive and totally idealistic for anyone to say that political risk doesn’t exist. But it exists everywhere. The point is that it’s not going to go away. What we need are the tools to manage it so that it doesn’t become a problem. What we do on the AIF side is to ensure that we unlock these bottlenecks and sometimes it’s a political bottleneck, sometimes it’s a policy bottleneck. Sometimes it’s a data or business intelligence bottleneck because you can’t invest if you don’t understand your terrain, if you don’t have reliable numbers.

And I suppose this is a continuation of a culture that goes back to my days at Pencon. There was a lot of talk on pension reform and many people were saying that it wasn’t possible. It took a few senior people and a very willing President Obasanjo to back us and we pushed through the pension reform and did it in such a way that it remains sustainable