Recently, there has been a sudden burst of corporate blackmail aimed at one of Africa’s most illustrious entrepreneurs, Leo Stan Ekeh. Most appalling is the pettiness and clear lack of intelligence displayed by the clique of blackmailers and their hirelings. It got me thinking about how much premium Africans place on their brightest and best, especially those who by sheer dint of hard work, tenacity, courage to dare the odds, have chiselled their way from the lowest nadir of their enterprise to the top of it.
Leo Stan, as he’s simply called, is in this class of rare African achievers. And he did it in the mentally-engaging and knowledge-demanding Information Communications Technology, ICT, turf. I knew Leo Stan decades back in his undergraduate days at the Panjab University, Chandigarh, one of the oldest universities in India established since 1882. At that time, there was a sizeable sprinkling of African students in India and Panjab University was no exception. I had a good number of Africans at that time as friends and acquaintances. But young Leo Stan was special. He was gregarious, affable and outgoing. It was easy to notice him in a crowd: rangy and endowed with gift of presence. Besides his imposing height, you could tell from the manner he got going with the cosmopolitan university community that he’s cut out for the big stage. Most people knew him as Leo Stan; only a few knew his full name, Leonard Stanley Ekeh.
He was a man on a mission whose genial and studious disposition tells you he was not there just to add to the number. The quest for knowledge and a burning desire for self-discovery drove him into the hallway of adventure. He soon distinguished himself both socially and academically to earn the respect of fellow Africans and recognition from the university authorities. In no time, he was leader of the African students’ contingent in Panjab and instantly became their voice in the university community.
At that time, India had already become the breeding ground for outliers. Graduates from Indian universities got straight employment at Microsoft, Wall Street, the New York Stock Exchange and other top corporations across the United States and Europe. Some others got straight into entrepreneurship and made a success of it. Such was the high profile of Indian universities noted for their lavish infusion of numerate skills into their curriculum.
It was therefore no surprise to me when many years after, the name Leo Stan became a household name in Africa ICT ecosystem. The man I once knew as a restless, zesty African student has turned his energy to creating values, creating wealth and jobs for many. Rather, what has come to me and perhaps others who knew him and have followed his life’s odyssey from India to United Kingdom and back to Africa, as a surprise is the desperation by his own people to pull down the man who gave Africa a voice in the global ICT space, an area where India has become a global force. India has created tech billionaires in this century. The Shiv Nadar family, Azim Premj family, Jay Chaudhry, Byju Raveendran among others make up this list of worthy Indians. Some of these entrepreneurs just like Leo Stan and many others across the world built their businesses from the scratch. Indians can tell their story. They praise them for their industry and stellar example. They don’t blackmail them for being successful or try to pull them down. These tech entrepreneurs play critical roles as enablers of India economy. For this, the government and the people protect them. This is what is lacking in Africa. Those who show capacity to create wealth through entrepreneurship are often left to the vagaries of jealous competitors and atrocious blackmail from those who are failing and even those who have failed in their businesses.
Trying to link Leo Stan and any of the companies associated with his name to unhealthy corporate governance smacks of desperation and primitive show of disrespect for a man whose collateral is integrity. Any African who plays big in the Africa ICT marketplace knows that without integrity, you cannot have as much as a handshake with global brands like Microsoft, Apple, HP, Samsung, among others. It’s the nature of ICT. Here, the game is not measured by the depth of your pocket. It’s a function of trust, your capacity to make your word your bond. This must reflect on how much of technical competence you have, enough to keep your technology and service ready, functional and available.
Leo Stan had long established all this and it’s to his credit that Microsoft, Samsung, HP, Apple and others have not only established strong technical presence in Nigeria which has led to knowledge transfer to young Nigerian techies, but has also created thousands of direct and indirect jobs across different demographics and human resource cadres. So, why blackmail such a man? Why try to pull him down just because he has succeeded where many failed? Success is not served on a platter. For a man who has built a world-class African brand, Zinox, as a counterfoil to the dominance of exotic brands, national and continental garlands ought to be his reward, not a blizzard of unintelligent blackmail.
At the twilight of last year, President Muhammadu Buhari conferred the prestigious National Productivity Order of Merit (NPOM) award on Leo Stan, Oba Otudeko, Aliko Dangote, Tony Elumelu and other distinguished Nigerians. This is how to reward your best. India has similar reward system, a roll call of national honours. It’s to encourage those who have helped to build the society through industry, service and philanthropy. Shiv Nadar, for instance, holds the Padma Bhushan award for “distinguished service of a high order”. Padma Bhushan is the third-highest civilian award in India.
My long stay in Africa has exposed me to the treachery in corporate Africa. Corporate blackmail is everywhere in the world but it’s how institutions of government handle it that makes all the difference. African governments must do more to protect their shining stars in entrepreneurship. In spite of the rash of blackmail against Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon and other mega-corporations., the US government still finds a way to protect them just so they will keep them going and protect millions of jobs allied to them. Nigerian government must strive at all times to protect the likes of Aliko Dangote, Mike Adenuga, Tony Elumelu, Leo Stan Ekeh, Oba Otudeko and others. These are genuine African brands who have shattered all ceilings and erased all stereotypes about the capacity of Africans to do great things.
Hilary Hinton, more popularly known as Zig Ziglar, the American inspirational author and salesman, once made a poignant statement which should be a soothing balm for successful people. He said: “You do not pay the price of success, you enjoy the price of success.” Leo Stan and all those who have been and are being blackmailed should ‘enjoy’ the discomfort of blackmail while it lasts. As we say in India, let the problem build you, not break you.
·Mr. Kalpesh writes from Accra, Ghana
