FG, Dangote, Oramah, Amina Mohammed: Africa Must Build, Finance, Own Its Future

• Charge young leaders to take control of continent’s narrative

Aliko Dangote, Africa’s Industrial Pathfinder, and other prominent African leaders have challenged a new generation of leaders to take control of the continent’s narrative, mobilise its resources and build institutions and enterprises capable of transforming Africa’s position in the global economy.

Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations, Amina Mohammed; former President and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Afreximbank, Prof Benedict Oramah; Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Taiwo Oyedele; Minister of Art, Culture, Tourism and the6 Creative Economy, Hannatu Musawa; and Chief Executive Officer, Rwanda Development Board, Jean Guy Afrika, delivered the charge at the closing of the 2026 Aliko Dangote Foundation Africa Diaspora Leadership Programme Young Global Leaders Convening in Lagos.

Speaking to a gathering of Young Global Leaders from Africa and the diaspora, the leaders argued that the continent must move beyond being defined by its challenges and natural resources to becoming a producer, financier and owner of globally competitive businesses, technologies, cultural assets and institutions.

Their message brought into sharp focus the objective of the four-day Lagos learning journey, which was designed around the theme “Building Africa at Scale” and exposed participants to Nigeria’s industrial, financial, technological and creative ecosystems.

Amina Mohammed told the young leaders that Africa’s struggle for influence was increasingly a contest over power, institutions, and who gets to define the continent’s story. She said Africans could no longer be satisfied simply with securing representation at global decision-making tables but must seek the power to shape the decisions themselves. “We can no longer be the people that are profited from. You have to own what it is that is your power,” Mohammed said.

Recalling conversations with young Africans about representation at the United Nations, she said they increasingly wanted more than “a seat at the table”. “What we really want is the pen,” she quoted them as saying, explaining that the pen symbolised the power to write the narrative.