HE was named Ghana’s CEO of the Decade in 2021. He heads the Kwarleyz Group, which comprises five companies – Wonda World Estates, Petronia City Development, New African Construction, Belfast City and Property Management and the New Africa Foundation.
Now having scaled the heights of the corporate world, this young cross-sector industry mogul is embarking on a crusade to empower Africa’s youth.
Freedom Jacob Caesar spoke to Jonathan Offei-Ansah recently about his quest to change the mindset of Africa’s next generation to become doers and to excel in business, industry, and technology.
He said: ‘Africa has independence. But this independence is merely a framework; the actual freedom, for young Africans, for black society, is still denied. So, I choose to represent future freedom for my generation, and those in the years to come. And of course, my first name embodies this representation – Then, my second name, Jacob, is akin to the 12 tribes of Judah, how to unify people. And finally, Caesar is straightforwardly a justification, as much as every single day I know that, yes, some of my own may betray me, some of my own may be pulling me down.
‘And so, I’m privileged as Freedom Jacob Caesar to lead a movement; I relate it applicable to an entire generation across nations, across the continent – My movement and theirs.’
In Freedom’s opinion, the African has always been disregarded because ‘our capacity has been undermined by ability.’ He wants to impart lessons from his experience of rising from poverty to his present status to Africa’s youth.
‘People might look at me today and say, “Oh, his is a remarkable achievement. Oh, you did this?” I don’t see my success as a big thing because I feel like this is 10 percent or 15 percent of what I’m supposed to do.’
He draws inspiration, not just from his own achievements, but from great thinkers and visionaries like Albert Einstein and Kwame Nkrumah to encourage African youth to become not just leaders, but doers, whom others can emulate.
‘I belong to a society that are not historically known as achievers. I belong to a society who are becoming football players, stars, musicians. But when it comes to leadership, I couldn’t find a true leader anymore. Now, I could find a President; I could find a Minister. But I couldn’t find a true leader that impacts a race. One person whose voice travels through nations and lifts generations. And I just thought that… I feel very ordained. I feel chosen and appointed to shoulder the responsibility. So, I decided to take the crown upon myself and started off by telling people that I am the prince of Africa’, he states.
Freedom deplores the education system in Africa which does not encourage students to become entrepreneurs, but ‘…programmes them to be jobseekers’. He believes the sustainable development of the continent requires the youth to aspire to be more than jobseekers – to be entrepreneurs, industrialists, and environmentalists, for example.
‘Every parent thinks that they need to educate their child academically, but only to get a good job. So, the average African does not grow up to be an industrialist like myself, or an environmentalist, an entrepreneur, or a businessman,’ he says, adding that, ‘…most of the African youth are looking just to work with all the education that they have.’
Freedom believes his achievements can be a template for the African youth ‘…so they don’t dream to become a footballer, or dream to become like a politician or a president, but they dream to become a true industrialist, an entrepreneur that’s shaking the world and making change; making a revolutionary change with their mindset, with their work, with their achievements. So, I want to create a lot of Freedom Jacob Caesars with the Freedom Movement.’
Part of the Freedom Movement is the creation of a cryptocurrency called the Freedom Coin.
Freedom sees the constant depreciation of African currencies as one of the banes of the continent’s economic development and believes the decentralised Freedom Coin can be used to hedge and stabilise these currencies.
Allied to the cryptocurrency is his Petronia City, the first and biggest free zone enclave for international, continental, and local crypto miners to have access to data centres and power generators which will sustain the crypto industry of Africa and many industries more.
Freedom Jacob Caesar’s story is spectacular. He has overcome many challenges to pull himself up to economic prosperity.
His passion to help Ghana’s and Africa’s next generation to navigate some of the challenges it has faced and those that he has had to directly overcome to prosper as a businessman, an entrepreneur and a philanthropist is infectious. And he is bullish about it.
