Alhaji Aliko Dangote is one man many
would regard as a man of timber and
caliber. With titles like MFR and GCON
to his name, Aliko has achieved a great
deal in his lifetime notable of which is
being regarded as the world’s richest
Black man.
Born on the 10th of April, 1957, Dangote
is a business mogul who owns the
Dangote Group, a diverse enterprise with
interests in commodities. The company
boasts of operations in Nigeria and
several other countries in Africa,
including Benin, Cameroon, Togo,
Ghana, South Africa and Zambia. He is
currently worth an estimated net worth
of $26.3 billion USD. According to
Forbes Magazine, Dangote is the 23rd
richest person in the world and the
richest man in Africa. He was given the
name ‘Aliko, which means ‘The
Victorious One Who Defends Humanity’,
by his grandfather, Sanusi Dantata.
SCHOOLING
In terms of academic pursuit, the Kano
born business magnate went to different
schools including: Kano Capital
Elementary School and Sheikh Ali
Kumasi Madrasa (Arabic School in 1964,
and Capital High School, Kano in the
1970s. He studied business at the Al-
Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt where
he bagged a degree in Business Studies
and Administration and then returned to
Nigeria to take a loan from his uncle
Abdulkadir Dantata, who provided him
the sum of ₦500,000 (Naira, NGN) when
Aliko was only 21 years old, young and
looking to become an entrepreneur.
Aliko had always had a knack for
making money. He once said, “I can
remember when I was in primary
school, I would go and buy cartons of
sweets [sugar boxes] and I would start
selling them just to make money. I was
so interested in business, even at that
time.”
BUSINESS CAREER
The Dangote Group came into being as a
small business firm in 1977 and after
over 30 years, it has turned into a multi-
trillion naira conglomerate with many of
its operations in Benin, Ghana, Nigeria,
and Togo.
Dangote has gone beyond the
conventional enlarging his line of
businesses to also accommodate areas
like food processing, cement
manufacturing, and freight. The Dangote
Group is the leading brand in the
Nigerian sugar market and is the major
sugar supplier to the country’s soft drink
companies, breweries, and
confectioners. The Dangote Group has
grown from a mere trading company to
the largest industrial group in Nigeria
and these include: Dangote Sugar
Refinery, Dangote Cement, and Dangote
Flour, among others.
Dangote’s sugar refinery is the largest
refinery in Africa and in the world, it
boasts of being the third largest
accounting for about 800,000 tonnes of
sugar annually. Apart from these, the
Dangote Group salt factories and flour
mills and is a major importer of items
like rice, fish, pasta, cement and
fertilizer. The company deals in the
exportation of cotton, cashew nuts,
cocoa, sesame seed and ginger to several
countries. It also has major investments
in real estate, banking, transport, textiles
and oil and gas. The company provides
jobs for over 11,000 people and is
rightfully the largest industrial
conglomerate in the whole of West
Africa.
In July 2012, Dangote made a move by
proposing the idea of of leasing an
abandoned piece of land at the Apapa
Port to members of the Nigerian Ports
Authority which was well received and
adopted. He later set up facilities for his
flour mills in that area. In the 1990s he
approached the Central Bank of Nigeria
with the idea that it would be cheaper
for the bank to allow his transport
company to manage their fleet of staff
buses and there was also no objection to
this.
In Nigeria today, Dangote Group with its
dominance in the sugar market and
refinery business is the main supplier
(70% of the market) to the country’s soft
drinks companies, breweries and
confectioners.
Dangote has delved into the realm of
telecommunications and has set plans in
motion to build 14,000 kilometres of
fibre optic cables to cater for the whole
of Nigeria. This led to Dangote being
honored in January 2009 as the leading
provider of employment in the Nigerian
construction industry. He said, “Let me
tell you this and I want to really
emphasize it…nothing is going to help
Nigeria like Nigerians bringing back
their money. If you give me $5 billion
today, I will invest everything here in
Nigeria. Let us put our heads together
and work.”
POLITICAL INFLUENCE
In the area of politics in Nigeria, Alhaji
Aliko Dangote has never been on the
sidelines. In 2003, he provided a
considerable amount of funds for former
president, Olusegun Obasanjo’s re-
election bid. to which he gave over N200
million (US$2M). He has always been a
benevolent benefactor to causes judging
from his contribution of N50 million (US
$0.5M) to the National Mosque under
the guise of “Friends of Obasanjo and
Atiku”. He also contributed N200 million
to the Presidential Library. These highly
controversial gifts to members of the
ruling Party [PDP] have raised eyebrows
despite highly publicised anti-corruption
campaigns during Obasanjo’s second
term regime.
In 2014, the Nigerian government
revealed that Aliko Dangote had
committed the whopping sum of 150
million Naira to combat the spread of
the Ebola virus in Nigeria.
FAMILY LIFE
Dangote has three siblings from his
mothers’ side: Sani, Bello and a younger
brother who lost his life in an air crash
in Kano with Ibrahim Abacha in 1996.
His mother, Mariya, whom he named his
recreational boat after is still alive. He
has been married and divorced three
times
before his current marriage which
produced three beautiful
children: Halima, Fatima and Sadia. In
the past, he had been romantically
linked with the Director and Secretary of
his United Kingdom subsidiary, Dangote
Global Services, Miss Oluwatosin Coker,
and a sugar merchant and pastor, Rev.
Chief (Mrs.) Josephine Oluwadamilola
Kuteyi.
NEW FRONTIERS
The multi-billionaire Aliko is now
casting his gaze beyond commodities like
cement, sugar and flour–the three
commodities that served as the
foundation for his business empire, to
the oil business. In April 2014, he
announced that he had received $9
billion funding from a consortium of
local and international lenders to
construct a private oil refinery, fertilizer
and petrochemical complex in Nigeria.
Dangote Cement which is now publicly
traded is also gaining new grounds in
Africa with about $750 million invested
in new plants for Kenya and Niger.
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