Nigerian businessman Hakeem Belo-Osagie, Tom Ilube back artificial intelligence centre at University of Benin

Hakeem Belo-Osagie and Tom Ilube have pledged support for an artificial intelligence centre at the University of Benin, at the launch of a trust fund created to channel long-term investment into the federal university.

Belo-Osagie, chairman of Metis Capital Partners and former chairman of Etisalat Nigeria, committed to backing development of an AI curriculum and the establishment of the centre itself. Ilube, the British-Nigerian technology entrepreneur, pledged support specifically for AI education at the institution.

The commitments were made at the launch of the University of Benin Trust Development Fund, a financing platform targeting ₦100 billion, roughly $72 million, for infrastructure renewal, research development, academic programmes and the AI centre.

Two donors with track records in education

Ilube studied at the University of Benin before building a career in British technology, founding the identity company Garlik and later Crossword Cybersecurity. He established the African Gifted Foundation and the African Science Academy, a girls' school in Ghana focused on mathematics and physics. He chaired the Rugby Football Union, becoming the first Black chair of a major sport in England, and now chairs The King's Trust in the United Kingdom. He was appointed CBE in 2017.

Belo-Osagie holds degrees from Oxford in politics, philosophy and economics, a law degree from Cambridge and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He chairs the board of FSDH Holding Company, which spans a merchant bank, asset management, pension fund administration and securities trading. He also chairs Chocolate City Group and Duval Properties.

His philanthropy has concentrated on higher education. He and his wife, Myma, endowed a distinguished African entrepreneurship lecture series at Harvard, where he chairs the board of trustees of the Centre for African Studies. He sits on Harvard's Global Advisory Board, Yale's President's Council on International Activities and New York University's President's Global Council, and on the international advisory bodies of the Brookings Institution and the Council on Foreign Relations. The couple are among the largest donors to the African Leadership Academy in Johannesburg, which named a wing after them in 2012.

What else was pledged

The largest single commitment at the launch came from the university's Faculty of Law class of 1985, which pledged a ₦1 billion auditorium project for the faculty.

The Niger Delta Development Commission committed to a 650-bed student hostel and rehabilitation of internal roads. First Bank of Nigeria also pledged support.

Other donors included Nduka Obaigbena, founder and chairman of THISDAY Media Group and ARISE News; Osagie Okunbor, former managing director of Shell Nigeria; Lee Ikpea, chairman of LEE Engineering Group; and the chief executive of Deck Oil.

The fund's board of trustees is chaired by Osagie Ize-Iyamu. Trustees include Kingsley Jesuorobo, Richard Oma Ahonaruogho, Loretta Oduware Ogboro-Okor, Alexander Imuetinyan Eronmwon and Emmanuel Olakunle Oriazuwa. Edoba Omoregie, the vice-chancellor, convened the launch and serves as a trustee.

The board said total pledges would be collated and announced in due course.

Universities turning to private capital

Nigerian federal universities have leaned increasingly on alumni networks and private donors as government allocations have failed to keep pace with enrolment and inflation. Endowment structures of the kind launched at Benin remain uncommon in the system, and their success depends on whether pledges convert into disbursed funds.

The artificial intelligence commitments carry a specific weight. Nigerian universities have struggled to build computing capacity and specialist teaching staff in the field, and most AI training in the country happens outside the formal higher education system through private academies and international programmes. Curriculum development, which Belo-Osagie has undertaken to support, is the harder part of the problem.