Oge Elumelu, entrepreneur and youth advocate, has launched a new internship initiative aimed at connecting young Nigerians with employers, equipping them with workplace skills and improving their employment prospects.
The programme, unveiled during the inaugural Africa Everywhere Festival in Lagos, seeks to bridge the gap between education and employment by providing graduates with practical work experience and direct access to recruiters.
Speaking at the event, Elumelu said the initiative grew out of her podcast, African Everywhere Conversations with Oge, launched in September 2024 to expose young Africans to opportunities in industries such as finance, technology, fashion, beauty and entertainment.
She explained that the internship scheme was created to move beyond conversations and provide tangible career opportunities for young people. “The whole idea was to help shed light on different businesses and sectors so that more young Africans can understand how to enter these spaces,” she said. “We then asked ourselves how we could create more tangible impact by helping people gain actual work experience.”
Elumelu said the organisers partnered with companies willing to offer internship placements, reviewed applications, helped shortlisted candidates improve their CVs and matched them with available opportunities.
The programme attracted overwhelming interest, receiving more than 7,000 applications.
From the applicants, 170 candidates were shortlisted, around 150 attended the festival, while 15 organisations participated in the accompanying career fair.
She disclosed that 37 successful applicants would be placed on internships lasting between three and six weeks, adding that some participating companies had indicated they could offer permanent employment to outstanding interns.
According to Elumelu, the initiative is designed to tackle graduate unemployment by helping young people acquire practical workplace experience and improve their employability.
Elumelu said the long-term vision is to expand the programme beyond Lagos to Abuja and other Nigerian cities before extending it to major African hubs, including Accra, Nairobi, Johannesburg and Cairo.
She noted that the goal is to build a pan-African platform that connects talented young people with employers across the continent.
Delivering the keynote address, Tony Elumelu, Chairman of Heirs Holdings, encouraged young Africans to dream big, embrace hard work and develop financial literacy, stressing that the continent’s future rests on its youthful population. “The future of Africa belongs to our youth,” he said. “Knowledge is power. Learn how organisations make money, but also learn how you can make money yourself. The best thing anyone can give you is to teach you how to save, how to invest and how to build capital because that is how we create prosperity.”
Drawing from his own experience, Elumelu recounted how he secured his first banking job despite not meeting the advertised academic qualifications. He said he wrote directly to the bank’s chief executive seeking an opportunity to prove himself. “Dream dreams, be ambitious, work hard, stay disciplined and don’t give up. Luck comes when preparation meets opportunity,” he advised.
