By Newsshelve correspondent.
African leaders and policymakers have challenged the continent’s young generation to take greater control of Africa’s economic and political future by building institutions, mobilising local resources and creating globally competitive businesses.
The call was made at the closing of the 2026 Aliko Dangote Foundation Africa Diaspora Leadership Programme Young Global Leaders Convening in Lagos.
The four-day programme, themed “Building Africa at Scale,” brought together Young Global Leaders from Africa and the diaspora for engagements across Nigeria’s industrial, financial, technological and creative sectors.
Among those who addressed the gathering were United Nations Deputy Secretary-General, 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 the Creative Economy, Hannatu Musawa; and Chief Executive Officer of the Rwanda Development Board, Jean Guy Afrika.
The leaders said Africa must move beyond being defined by its challenges and natural resources and position itself as a producer, financier and owner of businesses, technologies, cultural assets and institutions capable of competing globally.
Amina Mohammed: Africa needs the power to shape decisions
Mohammed said Africa’s struggle for global influence was increasingly about power, strong institutions and the ability to define its own narrative.
She urged young Africans to move beyond seeking representation at global decision-making tables and instead pursue the power to shape decisions. “We can no longer be the people that are profited from. You have to own what it is that is your power,”
Mohammed recalled conversations with young Africans about representation at the United Nations, noting that many were no longer satisfied with simply having “a seat at the table.”
“What we really want is the pen,” she quoted them as saying, explaining that the pen represented the power to write Africa’s own narrative.
According to her, African countries collectively constitute the largest regional grouping at the United Nations and have significant influence over decisions of the global body.
She, however, said the continent often approached international affairs as a recipient rather than a power broker.
Mohammed called for stronger institutions, greater strategic coordination and more deliberate use of Africa’s collective economic and political strength.
She also identified artificial intelligence as an emerging arena of global power in which Africa must avoid being left behind.
“Don’t follow the status quo,” she told the young leaders. “Have the courage of your conviction and just bloody well do it.”
Oramah: Dangote Refinery helping Africa ‘take back its mind’
Oramah said the Dangote Petroleum Refinery had demonstrated that Africans could conceptualise, finance and execute complex industrial projects at global scale.
He described the psychological impact of the refinery as one of its most significant contributions to Africa’s development.
“The greatest thing that the Dangote Refinery has done and will do for us is our ability to take back our minds,”
Oramah noted that the project was helping to consign to the “rear view mirror” the perception that Africa lacked the capacity to undertake world-scale industrial ventures.
He stressed, however, that Africa’s transformation could not depend on a few exceptional projects. “Unless we manufacture, unless we produce,” he said, the continent would continue to struggle to change its position in the global economy.
Oramah also called for greater control of Africa’s financial resources, urging commercial banks across the continent to embrace what he described as “developmental commercial banking.”
He said African financial institutions must become more willing to support long-term productive investments capable of expanding the continent’s industrial capacity.
Oyedele: Create conditions for more African industrialists
Oyedele challenged governments to create an enabling environment that would allow more entrepreneurs to build enterprises on the scale demonstrated by Dangote.
Describing Dangote as “a fighter,” the minister said his close interaction with the industrialist had changed his understanding of the persistence required to execute major investments in Nigeria.
“Until I got close to him, I saw that he was stressed more than the rest of us. But he would never give up,” Oyedele said.
He stressed the need for government to focus on creating the right conditions for entrepreneurs to invest, expand production and create wealth.
The minister’s intervention reinforced a central message of the convening: that Africa’s development cannot rest solely on government action, but requires an ecosystem where private enterprise, finance, institutions and young leaders can operate at scale.
Comment here