The foundation of immediate past UBA Group MD/CEO, Mr. Tony O. Elumelu, has announced the birth of an annual award to promote academic excellence in universities across Nigeria.

The Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF), a not-for-profit institution committed to the economic transformation of Africa by enhancing the competitiveness and growth of the African private sector, this morning in Lagos announced that it will offer annual prizes in perpetuity to top-performing graduating students at several universities in the country. The annual prizes will be for top undergraduate and graduate (where relevant) students at the various universities in Economics, Business Administration, and Medicine. An annual professional prize will also be provided through the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria to encourage excellence in the banking profession.

Mr. Elumelu, Chairman of Heirs Holdings, an African proprietary investment firm, is also Chairman of Transnational Corporation of Nigeria (Transcorp) and Tenoil Petroleum & Energy Services. Previously, he was Group CEO of United Bank for Africa (UBA), a position he held for over 13 years after a successful merger of UBA and Standard Trust Bank (STB), a distressed financial institution which a 34-year-old Elumelu and a group of investors acquired and turned around in 1997.

“These prizes reflect the appreciation that my wife and I have for our own university education in Nigeria and our confidence in the quality of the education provided by these great institutions,” said Mr. Elumelu. “By supporting promising students, I believe that we are fulfilling one of the mandates of The Tony Elumelu Foundation, which is to promote and celebrate excellence in business leadership and entrepreneurship across Africa.”