Aliko Dangote was on Wednesday named Africa’s richest man by Forbes Magazine. Here are some facts you should know about him.
Aliko Dangote was born in Kano on April 10, 1957 into a wealthy Hausa-Muslim family.
His mother, Mariya Sanusi Dantata was the granddaughter of legendary Hausa businessman Alhassan Dantata.
His father, Mohammed Dangote was Dantata’s business associate.
Dangote started business in primary school when he bought cartoons of sweets and sold to make money
He attended the Al Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt where he studied business,
His uncle Sanusi Abdulkadir Dantata who gave him a business loan of =N=500,000 (Naira) when he was just 21 years old to start his business.
The Dangote Group, originally a small trading firm founded in 1977, is now a multi-trillion naira conglomerate with operations in Benin, Ghana, Nigeria, and Togo.
Dangote’s businesses include food processing, cement manufacturing, and freight.
The Dangote Group dominates the sugar market in Nigeria: it is the major sugar supplier to the country’s soft drink companies, breweries, and confectioners.
Dangote Group has moved from being a trading company to Nigeria’s largest industrial group including: Dangote Sugar Refinery,, Dangote Cement, and Dangote Flour amongst others
Dangote Group also has major investments in real estate, banking, transport, textiles and oil and gas. It employs over 11,000 people and is the largest industrial conglomerate in West Africa.
Dangote is branching into telecommunications and has started building 14,000 kilometres of fibre optic cables to supply the whole of Nigeria.
Dangote was awarded Nigeria’s second highest honour, Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger (GCON) by President Goodluck Jonathan