Ike Chioke, group managing director of Afrinvest (West Africa) Ltd., has written to Billionaire investor and Chairman of Heirs Holdings Tony Elumelu, C.F.R to thank him after repaying a $1 million loan that Elumelu made from his own money in 2011.
In the letter seen by MoneyCentral, Chioke says the loan helped the Lagos investment firm get through its hardest period after the global financial crisis.
The two-page “Letter of Appreciation”, dated October 14, 2026, is addressed to Elumelu as chairman of Heirs Holdings.
It describes “the final settlement in June of the personal loan you so generously extended to me in 2011.”
Chioke wrote that Elumelu “made the remarkable decision to lend me US$1 million of your personal funds” at a time when Afrinvest “struggled to rebuild and recapitalise the business in the aftermath of the global financial crisis.”
“While the financial obligation has now been fully discharged, the debt of gratitude I owe you will endure,” Chioke wrote. The letter is signed on behalf of Afrinvest (West Africa) Limited.
Elumelu had earlier recounted the story.
He said Chioke had led Afrinvest’s senior management on a thank-you visit to him on October 14. In a post on his personal website dated October 15, he described the money as “an unsolicited investment of $1 million in the company” made “a few years after the 2008 global financial crisis”.
“No documentation. No agreements. No terms,” Elumelu wrote. “Just requested their account number and wired the fund and say – repay when things turn around.” He said the investment “was repaid with interest”. He also said the greatest return “was not the financial gain” but seeing Chioke “repay that trust with integrity”.
In 2011, $1 million was worth about N155 million at the official exchange rate of the time, on MoneyCentral estimates. At today’s rate of about N1,335.50 per dollar, the same amount is worth about N1.34 billion.
The loan came at a difficult time for Afrinvest. Chioke became managing director in May 2009, taking over from Godwin Obaseki, who became chairman. Chioke has said he was given “the mandate of restructuring, recapitalising and repositioning the firm.”
Nigerian stocks had lost more than 65% of their value after March 2008. When Chioke took over, Afrinvest had “no more than three or four thousand active retail customers,” he said.
The firm then rebuilt, with Elumelu’s cash coming in handy.
By 2025 it had nearly 200 staff across five offices, and Its annual Nigerian Banking Sector Report has become an industry reference.
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