The 67-year-old is a philanthropist and billionaire (Image: Getty)
You might think the richest man in Africa would flash his cash more, but Aliko Dangote is not that type of billionaire. The Nigerian business magnate estimated to be worth over $10bn buys a new car every eight years and drives himself between business meetings.
Listed by Forbes as a billionaire in 2008, Dangote’s story is no rags to riches tale. Some have labelled the business magnate “ruthless” despite his partnerships with Bill Gates to fight against polio and malnutrition. The richest black billionaire in the world, Dangote is something of a classic industrialist.
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Nigeria’s $21bn Dangote mega oil refinery opening (Image: Getty)
He started off trading flour and sugar, but now his assets make up 30 percent of Nigeria’s total public value market. For comparison, giant corporations like Microsoft and Apple each make up only 7 per cent each of the US’ market value.
The Dangote Group is now one of the biggest employers in Africa. When he launched plans for his mega oil refinery he said, “You know nobody will come and develop this economy, only us.”
By 2025, Nigeria is expected to become the continent’s biggest refined oil exporter. He said “when we start the others will see and then they will follow,” adding “so we need to take charge” or the continent’s economy will “never work.”
Yvonne Ike, West Africa CEO of Renaissance Capital, said: “Working with him as a banker is extremely challenging. If you don’t know his business at an extremely detailed level you don’t stand a chance – he will unravel you in seconds. He does not suffer fools gladly.”
The first deliveries to Nigeria’s first mega oil refinery have now kicked off (Image: Getty)
Dangote was born in Kano, the second largest city in the Muslim north. He was three years old when Nigeria gained independence and 10 when civil war broke out before there were a series of military dictatorships and brief democratic governments.
His great-great-grandfather traded in nuts and was the richest man in country. When he died, Dangote’s grandad took over the business. When he was just nine years old, Dangote’s dad died. He was taken into the care of his grandad who noticed his grandson was already showing a flair for business.
At primary school, Dangote would sell sweets, delegate sales and take a cut of his merchant’s profits. He said: “When you’re raised by an entrepreneurial parent or grandparent, you pick up that aspiration it makes you much more aggressive – to think that anything is possible.”
In 1977, he graduated from Al Azhar university in Cairo and joined his uncle’s cement business. Lagos’ cement market was frenzied following the “Cement Armada” which came about after Nigeria’s government aimed to spend their oil boom profits on infrastructure.
After ordering 20 million tonnes of cement to be imported within 12 months, Lagos ended up with 420 ships queuing for months out of the harbor. Some simply sank but for those that were left the concrete had become degraded and unusable – creating a massive gap in the market.
Dangote made “an awful lot of cash” by his mid-30s (Image: Getty)
As Nigeria became the richest country in Africa in the 1970s, Lagos’ population doubled and night life took off. Dongate flirted with gambling but ultimately quit before making his first serious business endeavour.
He asked his grandad for a loan of 500,000 Naira (NGN) to set up the Donagte group – an amount he said was equivalent to the price of 5,000 Mercedes at the time. He paid the loan back in less than 6 months with his highly successful cement endeavour.
With everyone now trying to get in the cement business, he pivoted to importing a few key items like flour, fish and sugar.
He felt the oil industry was too corrupt saying: “If we followed the trend of dealing in oil it would have tainted our name. People would have thought you’ve made this money because you’ve done a lot of unethical deals in the oil industry.”
Dongate’s company got a major break on 1986 when Nigeria entered into a trade liberalisation policy which funded incentives to boost non-oil exports after the price of oil dropped sharply.
He was a millionaire by the early 1990s as he hit his mid-30s. At the height of importing, he was making $3.5million per year – or as he said “an awful lot of cash.”
Making several visits to Brazil by 1995, he became inspired by the industry there and resolved to shift away from importing to processing and manufacturing. However, Nigeria’s ailing power grid and competing with cheap imports from Asia made this difficult.
Dangote was named Africa’s richest person in 2012 (Image: Getty)
The Nigerian government privatised a lot of state owned businesses, meaning by 1996, Dongate had acquired 40 per cent of the country’s national salt company – inheriting a monopoly. In 1977, he bought into the national fertilisation company then was producing 90 per cent of Nigeria’s national demand for sugar.
Dongate had a cosy relationship with the president, which afforded him favourable government deals after donating 120m NGN to general Oluṣẹgun Ọbasanjọ. On Dongate’s suggestion, Ọbasanjọ as president restricted imports to drive production.
Dongate vowed to build cement if cement was a restricted import. He funnelled $390m of his own money and $470m of government funds into a cement plant led by the World Bank.
He was criticised publicly for buying up state owned businesses before all government refineries were sold to Dangote just before Ọbasanjọ left office. African news sources drew comparisons between Dangote and Russian oligarchs. Then, Dangote sugar debuted in the Nigerian stock exchange – and sold 30 per cent of company for 420m NGN.
By 2008, Forbes added Dangote to its billionaires list before he finally entered the oil business. With none of his companies in debt, he decided to sink his millions in building a mega refiney. Nigeria was still shipping out its raw oil product to be refined – missing out on the most lucrative part of the process.
Dangote was named Africa’s richest person in 2012 and he is the richest black billionaire in the world. Godfather to Nigerian music star Davido, the young musician said his uncle is “a different kind of billionaire”.
He said: “Uncle Aliko buys two cars every eight years. He is very disciplined and a different kind of billionaire. Every time I see him, he just says one thing and one thing only. Save your money. There is nothing more he tells me other than to save my money.”
