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Africa’s foremost tech icon and
Chairman of Zinox Group,
Chief Leo Stan Ekeh, who turns
70 on February 22, this year,
has explained why he is not
celebrating his 70th birthday with a mega party,
preferring to offer University scholarships to
additional 1000 Nigerian indigent wiz-kids to
study Computer Science in Federal Universities
so that the country’s private and public sectors
could have a new generation of tech wiz-kids
to support the growth of the economy.
He anticipates that these students who will
not be bonded, shall disrupt global wealth
equation in favour of Nigeria and defend our
tech independence. Selection shall be based
on a minimum Intelligent Quotient and Age
nationwide, and they shall be schooled and
exposed beyond tech to become global Tech
Citizens.
Speaking on phone, Ekeh said “Each shall
have a tech mentor from year one, as I plan a
partnership with Computer Society of Nigeria
and every vocation they shall be engaged
resourcefully. Beneficiaries shall be from poor
homes and those with parents who earn below
Government Level 10 and its equivalent in
the private sector. The first batch starts this
September, and I expect each to earn first class
degree. This is my Group of companies’ and
my little way of appreciating my country,
individuals and corporates that gave us the
opportunities in the last 40 years and still
patronizing our Tech Group – Task Systems,
TD Africa, Zinox Technologies, Konga etc. If
we are successful with this spiritual mandate,
I can then celebrate my 100 years on earth
with a bang. With God and AI, I am aiming
to make 120 years,” he said.
Ekeh, a largely humble and private person
not known for celebrating birthday milestones,
explained that rather than throwing a lavish
birthday party befitting his newly attained
Septuagenarian age, he has chosen with his
Group’s Management to provide world-class
tech human capital to support growth of the
nation’s economy.
“We need quality and tech-savvy wiz-kids
who can drive the future of government and
e-governance and those who will become
change-makers in the private sector.
“I have been blessed and bruised in this
country and I thank God. Frankly, I don’t
see enough Nigerian tech wiz-kids who can
defend the massive development anticipated
in the next 5 – 10 years in the oil and gas,
banking, agriculture, manufacturing, mining,
entertainment, etcetera, and public sectors. We
are becoming slaves in our own country in
a knowledge century which is unfortunate.
We are all arrogantly living just for today,
forgetting that only four God-anointed tech
wiz-kids can alter the GDP of this country in
five years. The man who controls your tech
resources decides your profit level and how
far your country and corporations can grow
in this second quarter of the 21st Century
and in future,” he said.
Ekeh, who was once decorated by President
Olusegun Obasanjo as ‘Icon of Hope’ on
Nigerian Independence Day in 2003, for his
tech-driven transformative impact on Nigerian
economy and the youths, said Nigeria must
begin to plan for the disruptions coming.
“The future is here but very fragile and
disruptive, it’s either you are something or
nothing at all. No middle ground. We need
to alter the digital trajectories of our people.
Technology is realistically the only profession in
the world today that can alter the destiny
of brilliant and humble kids from poor
families and position them as huge wealth
creators and sustainers. Though I am not
really from a very poor family, but I am
a testimony and shall tell the whole story
in my book that shall be published last
quarter of 2027. It shall be most revealing.
“This is my additional contribution
amongst others to appreciate Nigerians, the
Federal Government, sub- nationals and
corporations that have been supporting
my tech commitments and innovations on
this side of the Atlantic,“ the soon-to-be
septuagenarian said.
When asked how much it will cost to
undertake such gigantic project, he said:
“It is a spirit-driven project to thank those
who supported and are still supporting
companies within the Zinox Group. It has
an annual cost that shall run into billions
of Naira and my group is committed
to it amongst other social responsibility
projects like TD Africa Project to produce
10,000 female tech experts out of which 400
have graduated and are fully employed
in different corporates in Nigeria. This is
a 10-year project with other perks. The
full package shall be revealed online on
April 22, 2026,” he said.
However, beyond his birthday and the
scholarship initiative, Ekeh in the last 40
years has been a worthy role model for
philanthropy and a living exemplar of
what it means to live for public good. He
has been decorated with a lot of local and
international awards. His group has trained
and retrained over 3000 Nigerians and
donated tech centers to over 25 institutions
nationwide just to mention a few.
Ekeh was a former mass servant and
chorister in his local community Catholic
Church at Ubomiri, a sprawling community
on the fringes of Owerri, Imo State.
One of his favourite pastimes is to seek
out the poor and help them come up the
ladder of life. He is an entrepreneur who
draws a distinct line between capitalism
and welfarism? He believes that capitalism
must wear a human face; that profit must
not take the place of empathy as no one
came with and shall leave this earth with
cash.
His philanthropy is not limited by
geography. From south to the north, his
imprints of charity dot many educational
institutions. A couple of years ago, he
built a church complete with rectory in
his Ubomiri community, the same church
where he was once a mass servant.
At the dedication of the church, he
recalled in an emotion-laden voice:
“My grandfather produced a Reverend
Father who was ordained same day
with Rev Canon Tansi. My father as a
past time was a soloist in this church,
and he served God with all his might;
I was a mass servant and a member
of this choir (pointing to the horde of
choristers robed in red outfit). I have
never tasted alcohol or smoked since
I was born and I don’t know why. It
was something that never appealed to
me or fascinated me. I believe our good
God decided to save me from birth.
“I come from a lineage of people who
served God dedicatedly. I think I am a
miracle child and was clear who I wanted
to be from the day I launched out as a
tech entrepreneur. I saw myself as an only
Child even though I have siblings and,
as an orphan even though my parents
were alive and a bit civilized because no
person around me even though educated,
had tech knowledge to advise me, so I
decided to take the pain before pleasure
alone.
“I love God and will never hesitate to do
anything in the service of God and humanity.
I built this church as a mark of God’s special
love and mercy towards me. I have the best
wife any man would wish to have. She is a
super star. She is intelligent, beautiful and
unlike some women, she is not expensive
and more importantly, we operate on the
same tech wavelength. If for any reason I get
stuck, she is the one to figure out the solution
for me. God blessed me with brilliant and
responsible children too. I am grateful to God
because He has seen me through the valleys
and mountains of life. As a mark of God’s
mercy to me, I pay corporate tithes for all
my companies. I didn’t read it in the Bible
but I do it”, he told the audience.
“God is the architect of my success. As an
entrepreneur, I have strategised, stayed up late,
made projections but if there was no mercy
of God and His grace to help me implement
these, there will be no success. God has done
me well; even for me to be alive, to come
from the family I come from, the village,
town, region and country I come from. Most
importantly, God has managed me because
He gave me a proactive personality, removing
all the holes in my life. The temptations are
there, you can imagine them. Maybe if I was
taking alcohol, I would have been a mental
guy. I work an average of 20 hours a day
and near zero holidays and I have no health
challenges,” he once told some journalists.
For Ekeh, the Forbes Best of Africa Leading
Tech Icon, the scholarship for 1,000 Nigerian
students remains a tiny drop in the ocean
of multitude of philanthropies he has
extended to persons and institutions across
the continent quietly. Through his Leo Stan
Ekeh Foundation (LSEF), his family’s nonprofit, and the various companies under the
Zinox Group, he has impacted humanity and
institutions both in cash and kind, especially
human-capital development, upskilling
the hitherto unskilled in tech-techniques,
institutionalising entrepreneurship in select
universities and awarded countless local
and overseas scholarships to Nigerians of
all tribes and tongues to advance their quest
for knowledge.
In the last two years alone, the Foundation
launched three entrepreneurship centres
at St. Augustine University in Epe, Lagos,
Federal University, Brinin Kebbi, Kebbi
State, Imo State University (IMSU) etc.
The centres had been upskilling young
men and women turning them to wealth
and job creators, rather than job-seekers. At
the IMSU centre, it was a moment of joy
for about 200 young Nigerians who were
the first set of beneficiaries of a 3-month
entrepreneurship boost programme.
They were taught the fundamentals of
entrepreneurship by the best coaches and
experts drawn from Nigeria, United States
and United Kingdom. Not only were they
tutored by the best whizzes in diverse fields
of human endeavour, they were also kept
on a stipend throughout the duration of
the programme to augment their weekly
commute to the centre. In addition, each
trainee was gifted a brand-new Z-pad tablet
to aid their learning and upskilling process.
Some also received interest free loans to
launch their businesses.
What’s unique about Ekeh and his
philanthropy is that he does them behind
the scene. No cameras flashing. No media
buzz. Just humane acts of a man fated for greatness and encased in God’s grace.
SB E-news.
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