 I have been telling you that it's time to make Africa home again. I think I need to make a t-shirt and call it, what am I saying? Make Africa home again. There's nothing that you can do out there to change this mind of mine. It's time. Both Africans in the diaspora and Africans on the continent to make Africa home again. Anytime I want to do videos like this, I get super excited. But this is foster homes and it's owned by one of their attendees. And this is what I've been telling you. It's time to come back here and do something to change the face of the continent because we all are looking for a better Africa. And that better Africa depends on you and I. Come with me. Let me go show you the owner man. This is incredible. Oh my goodness. I don't know why I get super excited when I need to do videos. Come with me. This is automatic bro. Oh, paying for me now. Thank you. In my village, we don't have anything like this. But I still have to press. Let me clean my hand bro. Can you see? Hey, is that a camera? Wow. What am I? I'm so happy to see you. My goodness. What? This is where you live? Yes, this is one of my property. One of your properties. Yes. Which means you have several properties. Yes, something like that. We have a community here. This is incredible. I mean, I want to talk to you. You used to based in America. Yes. And you're back now in Ghana. Three years. You achieved this in three years? We have, yes. This is actually two years in the making. But I moved down in 2017 and I've been loving it. Can we sit somewhere and talk? Absolutely. Thank you. I'm sitting on the chair like this. So you might feel it. We don't have feeling it. How much does one cost? Oh, it's chicken change. It's chicken change. It's chicken change. I really want to know you. All I know is you used to be in America now. But first of all, you need to tell me your name. Where you from? Literally your story. Sure, sure, sure. So, what day? I don't know how you ended up in our neighborhood today. But we're glad to meet you. I followed you for a number of years. We're doing fantastic things for the continent. As relates to me, I'm Neil Oku. I actually was born in the U.S. but I came to Ghana when I was young. Two or three years old. Grew up here back and forth and then finally I went to university in the U.S. Right after I was on Wall Street. I recruited into one of the biggest investment banks at the time and it was my goal to really aspire and thrive there. I was there for I would say about 12 years and something really just drove me to look at broader horizons. I was really yearning to be back on the continent. So, I would say I up and moved back to Ghana. You're working for an investment bank? That is correct. Was your salary too small today? Oh, what day? I can't really complain at all. I must say I was doing very very well. I was living the American dream. Everything that one would think. I was the youngest senior vice president in my whole division. Everybody I worked with was very very supportive of me. But I was yearning for more. Seeing billions of dollars on a screen doesn't really do the same as making your own dreams materialize. So, I thought to myself, where could I actually make a difference? Where could I bring a new form of innovation, a new form of thinking? And where else than where I was accustomed to in my home country of Ghana? What day? I can't complain. I mean, America was great while it lasted. It was a good experience. But nonetheless, I always think back to the difficult patches where am I really as good as everybody thinks I am? Is it because I'm a black person in a room that I'm, you know, saw or treated a certain way? It really made things a conceptual decision for me. And overall, I thought I should come back and be amongst my people and really strive to be better. That's what I really hope for. Were you living or surviving in America? When it came to salary, I can definitely say I was living. I was one of what they call the top earners. But salary is not life. You wake up in the morning, you go to work, you're on a train with hundreds of people. You are done, you get back on a train. At the end of the day, winter, you can't go out. You know, it really was a survival for your social life. But nonetheless, here in Africa, you walk around. No matter what happens, you're always going to find food to eat. You're always going to have an opportunity to be around friends. Even in this tough period that we're in now. I mean, it's home. It still feels like an oasis. I just want to know how was the transition like you coming back to Ghana. How was the transition like? Because things definitely will be new to you. You see, I can't paint it as rosy or everything being glamorous. There were definitely some challenges. You have to really get to know the terrain. You know, get acclimated with how the people move and whatnot. But I will never ever ever go backward. I don't regret it at all. From my perspective, I did it on my own terms. And the passport only opens doors for you. You don't have to wait until you end up at the door where you want to be. And since I've been here, I've been at home. No matter what struggle, no matter, some days are very frustrating. But at the end of it, you know, you're achieving things that you would have never done sitting in somebody else's environment. It was all about work. You know, as an investment banker, we were very, very structured and I really enjoyed what I did. I had a very large team that reported to me, people much older, people from all walks of life. But at a certain point, you have to gauge whether or not everything around you is from your own will or you are working within a machine. So that structure in the corporate world got a little bit, I'll call it disingenuous at some point. And every time I take vacations and come to Ghana, I see so many different advancements. I've been to other African countries. I saw so much growth happening. And why not get in at the earlier stage or be able to take advantage of that on my own accord. And that's what really drove me to do what I did. I'm really impressed. But I just want to know what are you really doing in here? Well, you know, they always say there's only one real estate. So I decided to do real estate. That was my first income generating venture. I'm a finance guy through and through. So we looked at a whole different throw of investments. And I decided I would do something that is not done currently. We built a development that is automated homes or smart homes from what they would call it. And the design and our elements and things that we put in the place. Most people are thinking, oh, it won't work in Africa. You can do that in Ghana. I had it all over the place, but we fought to make sure it came to fruition. And this is where you are today. And it's really beautiful. Thank you. I don't know what I can afford because I'm looking for something like that. What am I? You are a worldwide name. You are a worldwide name. I mean, oh, you just pull out your credit card and just swipe it. Send us Momo. Yes. It'll be well. It'll be well. But, you know, I have so many people out there who love to support their brothers. I don't know about this particular house. How much does it cost in range? Oh, it's, you know, I would say 800 to somewhere around a million. Dollars? I can't quote the currency, but we'll leave it. We'll leave it there. We'll leave it there. Apart from this project, do you have any other projects? Yes. So surprisingly, what really bit me as the real estate bug was, I decided to build my house when I acquired some land. You know, we were getting pretty fat bonuses at some point. And I did a few investments in the U.S. and in the U.K. And decided to buy land in Ghana originally in East Lagoon. But it got to a point, I was like, when I do move to Ghana, maybe I should have something that's more of an investment generation point. So I did a whole development of apartments, 12 units and then another eight units. And I mean, it went very well. I was my own foreman. That was when WhatsApp video started out. So I actually was able to manage the work sitting in my office. That's how you knew that it was time to move down and, you know, do your own thing. So many Africans in the diaspora watching us right now who are thinking that, ìAfrica is not a place for me to go. Because I've been saying that it's time for each and every one of them to make Africa home again. Do you think we should make Africa home again?î It's not a question. It's a fact. I think people who aren't even born in Africa or Africa have direct African descent need to aspire to create some form of a pilgrimage back home. Similar to how all of our Jewish brothers and sisters go back to Israel, we need to require our diasporans, African Americans, the black British. Everybody should spend time, find a way every year, every two years to come back home and feel the patronage of where they are from, where they were taken from. But some of them believe that they are not Africans. I think they need to go back to the history books. I think they need to go back to their genealogy. Because if they are not Africans and they are from where they are right now, then why are they treated the way they are treated? This is where you need to be. This is where you're going to find a sense of self. And I strongly believe this is the way forward. There's an opportunity in anything you see in Africa. Every day on the street I see an opportunity. The things that we come home and get frustrated with, why is there light issue, why is there traffic and all of that. That is for all of our people in the diaspora to now figure out a solution. Like how Facebook and Amazon and all these tech companies have done things. To be able to bring that re-innovation and thought process to Africa. And that is your million dollar opportunity right there. That is how we can grow. And nonetheless, I was not frustrated. I didn't have any hardship I can really complain about. But coming here doing it on my own accord gave me the type of satisfaction that I would have never achieved sitting in some corner office somewhere. Do you believe in entrepreneurship in Africa? Entrepreneurship, 100%. How many people have been employed so far? I have about 25 people working for me currently. And when we talk about my whole group of companies, it's somewhere in the early hundreds. Do you believe that Africa is the future? Africa is not the future. Africa is now. And when you look at the goals that are set aside, we're going to make it despite ourselves. It's not about what a country or a government or an individual will do. Everything is here. All the natural resources, it's not just a sound bite or whatever the case may be. Look at what's going on in Europe, look at what's going on in the US. We have been really shrouded by, I don't know if it's grace or if it's ordainment, but the first true people are Africans. And now we are about to aspire to newer heights that nobody even thought of. I want to let you go, but I think I need to ask you this question before I go. If you had the chance to change something in Africa, what would that change be? There'll be a couple of things on that plate, but I would say fundamentally what I would want to change is the mindset. The mindset in itself is something that really has changed within me over time. And I see that with the whole domain of Africa. If we're able to tune ourselves to know that we are greater than how we see ourselves, we don't need to think foreign in order to make it good. We can do everything ourselves. Everything here is here. And that is where we need to really get to as a mindset. Once we achieve it, we'll see and we get the confidence that everybody grasps and this is really where the heaven is. This is really where the heaven is. I'm glad that we are in heaven right now. Thank you so much for talking to me. My ass.