Aliko Dangote

Aliko Dangote GCON (born
10 April 1957) is a Nigerian business magnate, investor, and owner of
the Dangote Group, which has interests in commodities in Nigeria and
other African countries. As of March 2018, he had an estimated net worth of US$14.1 billion.
Dangote is ranked by Forbes
magazine as the 100th-richest person in the world and the richest in
Africa, and peaked on the list as the 23rd-richest person in the world
in 2014. He surpassed Saudi-Ethiopian billionaire Mohammed Hussein Al
Amoudi in 2013 by over $2.6 billion to become the world's richest person
of African descent
Early life
Aliko Dangote, an ethnic Hausa Muslim from
Kano, Kano State, was born on the 10th of April 1957 into a wealthy
Muslim family. He is the great-grandson of Alhaji Alhassan Dantata, the
richest African at the time of his death in 1955. Dangote has said.
Dangote was educated at the Sheikh Ali Kumasi Madrasa, followed by
Capital High School, Kano. He has a bachelor's degree in business
studies and administration from Al-Azhar University, Cairo
Business career
Nigeria
The Dangote Group was established as a
small trading firm in 1977, the same year Dangote relocated to Lagos to
expand the company. Today, it is a multi-trillion-naira conglomerate
with many of its operations in Benin, Ghana, Nigeria, and Togo. Dangote
has expanded to cover food processing, cement manufacturing, and
freight. The Dangote Group also dominates the sugar market in Nigeria
and is a major supplier to the country's soft drink companies,
breweries, and confectioners. The Dangote Group has moved from being a
trading company to be the largest industrial group in Nigeria including
Dangote Sugar Refinery, Dangote Cement, and Dangote Flour.
In July 2012, Dangote approached the
Nigerian Ports Authority to lease an abandoned piece of land at the
Apapa Port, which was approved. He later built facilities for his flour
company there. 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, a proposal that
was also approved.
In Nigeria today, Dangote Group with its
dominance in the sugar market and refinery business is the main supplier
(70 percent of the market) to the country's soft drinks companies,
breweries and confectioners.It is the largest refinery in Africa and the
third largest in the world, producing 800,000 tonnes of sugar annually.
Dangote Group owns salt factories and flour mills and is a major
importer of rice, fish, pasta, cement, and fertiliser. The company
exports cotton, cashew nuts, cocoa, sesame seeds, and ginger to several
countries. It also has major investments in real estate, banking,
transport, textiles, oil, and gas. The company employs more than 11,000
people and is the largest industrial conglomerate in West Africa.
Dangote has diversified into
telecommunications and has started building 14,000 kilometres of fibre
optic cables to supply the whole of Nigeria. As a result, Dangote was
honoured in January 2009 as the leading provider of employment in the
Nigerian construction industry.
He has said, "Let me tell you this and I
want to really emphasise 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."
Other activities
Dangote played a prominent role in the
funding of Olusegun Obasanjo's re-election bid in 2003, to which he gave
over N200 million (US$1 Million). He contributed N50 million (US$0.25
Million) to the National Mosque under the aegis of "Friends of Obasanjo
and Atiku". He contributed N200 million to the Presidential Library.
These highly controversial gifts to members of the ruling PDP party have
generated significant concerns despite highly publicized
anti-corruption drives during Obasanjo's second term.
In May 2010, Britain's Daily Mirror
reported that Dangote was interested in buying a 16 per cent stake in
Premiership side Arsenal belonging to Lady Nina Bracewell-Smith. Dangote
later denied these rumours.
In November 2011, Dangote was awarded
Nigeria's second-highest honour, the Grand Commander of the Order of the
Niger (GCON) by the former President, Goodluck Jonathan.
Dangote reportedly added $24.2 billion to
his personal wealth in 2013, according to the Bloomberg Index, making
him the thirtieth-richest person in the world at the time, in addition
to being the richest person in Africa.
In 2014, the Nigerian government said Dangote had donated 150 million naira (US$750,000) to halt the spread of ebola.
In 2018, Nigeria Daily Times Reports that a
new well-equipped secondary school valued at N120m has been donated in
Lagos by the Dangote Foundation.
The gesture was part of the foundation’sm
ove to boost education in Nigeria- Alhaji Aliko Dangote, the Chief
Executive Officer (CEO) of the Dangote Group, said he has plans to
implement a scholarship programme for less privileged children in the
stateThe Dangote Foundation said it has donated a well-equipped
secondary school in Lagos valued at N120 million as part of its
interventionist programme to boost education. The foundation has also
offered annual free tuition to 250 indigent pupils.Alhaji Aliko Dangote,
the Chief Executive Officer of Dangote Group, said this at the
inauguration and handing over of the school with well-equipped
laboratories to Nawair-Ud-Deen Comprehensive College, Idi-Oro, Mushin,
the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports.
In May 2015, Dangote expressed interest in
purchasing the English football team Arsenal. He stated that if he was
able to make the purchase he would fire the club's long-standing manager
Arsène Wenger.
Personal life
Dangote is married, and lives in Lagos, Nigeria.
He has been married four times, and his
first three marriages ended in divorce. He has a total of three children
from these marriages.
Awards
Dangote was named as the Forbes Africa
Person of the Year 2014. The other nominees were South Africa's Public
Protector, Thuli Madonsela, Nigerian author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie,
Director-General of the Securities and Exchange Commission, (SEC),
Arunma Oteh, and President of the African Development Bank, Donald
Kaberuka.
In 2013, Dangote and six other prominent
Nigerians were conferred honorary citizenship of Arkansas state by
Governor Mike Beebe who also proclaimed 30 May of every year as Nigeria
Day in the US. The other prominent Nigerians are: Chief Ms. Temitope
Ajayi, the President and CEO of Nigerian-American Agricultural
Empowerment Programme; Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso of Kano State; Dr.
Akinwumi Adesina, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development; Prof.
Tajudeen Gbadamosi, a former lecturer of University of Lagos; Prof. Ade
Adefuye, the Nigeria's Ambassador to the United States; Prof. Julius
Okojie, the Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission.
In 2015, Dangote won the Clinton Global Citizen Award.
In 2018, Dangote was listed by UK-based company Richtopia at number 6 in the list of 100 Most Influential Philanthropists.
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