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The world has a lot of wealthy individuals. It is needless to say that these individuals continually seek to make themselves richer by investing more in profitable interests. While the richest person in other continents may change from time to time, the richest person in Africa has been the same for over 10 years now. What is the secret behind this? How has one man been able to make a lot of money than every man in Africa for 10 years in a row? Well, you’re just about to find out. In this article, we look at the life of Alhaji Aliko Dangote and how he climbed the ranks to become the richest man in Africa and maintain the position for 10 years. Grab some snacks because you’re about to learn some business secrets.
Who Is Aliko Dangote?
Aliko Dangote is the richest man in Africa and the richest black man in the whole world. Born in Kano, Nigeria on the 10th day of April in the year 1997 to Mohammed Dangote and Mariya Sanusi Dantata, you can say Aliko Dangote was born and raised in money considering the fact that he is the great-grandson of a one-time richest man in west Africa, Alhaji Alhassan Dantata who traded in kola and ground nuts. Unfortunately, Aliko’s father died when Aliko was eight years old.
He was nurtured and raised by his maternal grandfather who was a successful building material trader. Aliko Dangote had his basic, elementary and secondary education in Nigeria before proceeding to Al-Azhar University in Egypt where he obtained his bachelor’s degree in business administration. Born into a family of successful entrepreneurs, it is no wonder that Aliko Dangote grew to become an astute businessman and entrepreneur who remains at the cutting edge of state-of-the-art innovations in Africa and the world at large.
He has been married and divorced twice and he has 3 wonderful children. Now that we have an idea of who Dangote is, let us proceed to examine what he did to earn his place as the richest man in the whole of Africa.
Nascent Of The Dangote Empire
Shortly after graduating from the university, Aliko returned to Kono in Nigeria where he consulted his uncle for a loan with which he intended to start a cement trading business. As soon as he got the loan from his uncle, he relocated to Lagos, the commercial hub of the country in the southwest where he utilized the funds to begin a cement importation business which later metamorphosed into Dangote Group, a conglomerate that comprises various business ventures and investments. Through the 80s and 90s, Dangote sought to diversify. He delved into flour, sugar, rice, milk, fish, and iron trading. He would later travel to Brazil to study manufacturing in 1996. This helped him to shift the focus of his business from trading to manufacturing as he saw the need for a local manufacturer and a market that is not yet saturated in a country with an ever-growing population.
Taking Over: The Journey to Billions
After learning enough to become a manufacturer, Aliko Dangote, having made a lot of money from trading, started building salt and sugar refineries in 1999, as if that wasn’t enough, he also started building a flour mill and flour factory that same year. Seeing the success of his manufacturing business, he decided to go a step further by purchasing Benue Cement from the Nigerian government.
He would later go on to commission the Obajana Cement Plant which is the first Dangote plant. Located in Kogi State in the north-central region of the country, this plant is the largest of Dangote cement factories with 16.25Mta capacity running across five lines. This plant is currently the largest cement facility in sub-Saharan Africa. Today, the Dangote empire is the largest in Africa. Dangote Group’s publicly traded Businesses, Dangote Cement, Dangote Sugar, and NASCON Allied Industries make up a great percentage of the Nigerian Stock Exchange.
Latest Investments: Dangote Fertilizer Plant
Dangote made over $1 billion in the first half of 2022 and hasn’t stopped making money since. On the 22nd day of March 2022, He invited the president of Nigeria to commission Dangote Fertilizer Plant, Africa’s largest Granulated Urea Fertilizer complex. This plant takes up about 500 hectares of land in the Lekki Free Trade Zone of Lagos, the commercial hub of the country. The construction of this plant cost Dangote $2.5 billion. Today, Aliko Dangote has an estimated net worth of $18.6 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He remains the richest man in Africa for the eleventh year in a row, the richest black man in the world, and the 65th richest individual in the world.
Sources: Bloomberg, Forbes, Investopedia