12 Fascinating Facts about the Richest African – Aliko Dangote - TheRichest
The golden child of Nigerian business circles “Aliko Dangote” has been a great source of inspiration to entrepreneurs in Nigeria and across Africa especially those who really want to start small but with big dreams. In his journey of entrepreneurship, he identified and took advantage of opportunities. He was not discouraged by challenges which has resulted in his great achievement in business world and also made him the business icon of our time. The Nigerian billionaire as he is fondly called is one of the greatest Nigerian and African men who started very small and grew rapidly as a result of complete focus on what he knew how best to do. We all know how prominent Aliko Dangote has become in Nigeria and the world at large, but know very little facts about him.
1. Birth Information:
He was born on 10th of April year 1957 in Kano State into a wealthy Muslim family. From the time he was young Dangote had an eye on business.
2. Education:
Alhaji Aliko studied Business Studies and graduated from Al-Azahar University, Cairo, Egypt. Many of us didn’t know Aliko Dangote got his initial capital at 21 years from his uncle, the late Alhaji Sanusi Dantata to start his own business, as was the practice then. He thus started business in Kano in 1977 trading in commodities and also building supplies. Same year he moved to Lagos and decided to trade on cement.
3. How Much He Loved Business:
Surprisingly while in primary school, he would buy cartons of sweets (sugar boxes) and would sell to fellow students to make profits. This proves his huge interest in business, even at that time.
4. Politics:
Very few Nigerian knew that Dangote played a very prominent role in the funding of Olusegun Obasanjo’s re-election bid in 2003, to which he gave over 200 million naira. In addition, he contributed 50 million naira to the National Mosque under the aegis of “Friends of Obasanjo and Atiku” and also contributed 200 million to the Presidential Library. These highly controversial gifts to members of the ruling Party (PDP) gave rise to significant concerns despite highly publicised anti-corruption campaign during Obasanjo’s second term.
5. Patriotic Stance:
Dangote’s patriotic stance is hugely commendable: He invests most of his resources in Nigeria and across the continent with little or no interest in making any reasonable investment abroad, thereby playing a very significant role in achieving economic growth of Nigeria. This obvious effort is seen when he denied the rumour that he had interest in buying 16% stake in Premiership side belonging to Lady Nina Bracewell-Smith in 23 May 2010.
6. Managerial Skills:
Aliko Dangote proved that success is usually through determination, honesty and perseverance; and not necessarily by acquiring Harvard-Oxford certificates or First-Class academic qualification considering the fact that he had only minimum basic education. His managerial ability has caused envy among the economic professors across the continent.
7. Number of People He feeds:
Dangote pays over 12,000 staff nationwide, but on completion of ongoing projects, it is expected to hit 22,000 staff making earnings from Dangote group.
8. Dangote Is Not Motivated by Cultural or Religious Tribalism:
Alhaji Aliko Dangote, unlike some other people employs anybody that has good prospect for enhancing more rapid growth of Dangote group and Nigerian economic at large, paying little or no attention to tribe and religion of his employees. For instance, his Personal Assistant is Yoruba while his Head of Corporate Affairs is a Christian from Delta State. Of course his business success may also be linked to his broad-mindedness.
9. Dangote Has A Large Heart:
Dangote donated 150 million naira to stop the spread of Ebola in 2014, according to a recent Nigerian government announcement.
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10. Aliko Dangote is Still Diversifying
Not content with the large array of products that the Dangote Group produces, manufactures, imports, and exports, Aliko Dangote is still diversifying and exploring new markets. When you think about it, this is not that surprising considering Dangote openly admits that he is a major workaholic, sleeping little and never taking a vacation break.
Aliko Dangote’s latest exploits involve him taking the Dangote Group into the telecommunications industry. He has started testing the waters by plunging head first into them, and has already begun building fibre optic cables that will accommodate the entirety of Nigeria. This is a mere 14,000 kilometres of fibre optic cables to be precise, not to mention the task of installing them. This new enterprise has earned Dangote the honor of becoming the largest employer in Nigeria’s construction industry.
In addition to his telecommunications endeavours, Dangote also plans to take the Dangote Group into the petroleum sector. Again, not starting out small, Dangote has planned the construction of a $7 billion USD oil refinery in Nigeria, which would process up to 400,000 barrels of petrol every year. This is all part of his plan to make Nigeria self sufficient in areas where they still rely on importation.
11. Aliko Dangote Has Some Major Critics, and For Good Reasons
Despite his incredible success, well, more likely because of his incredible success, Aliko Dangote has gained quite a lot of enemies in his career. Some may think of this as jealousy or spite, but Dangote certainly doesn’t help himself in some situations. His critics believe that Dangote’s rise to success hasn’t been entirely ethical, and has most definitely involved a large amount of shady activity. One anonymous source states that Dangote’s overall business plan is simple: He finds a suitable market he can dominate, enters the market, and then proceeds to crush the competition through pricing wars, all whilst leveraging the fact that the market is poorly regulated.
One of these critics is Brian Browne, former United States consul-general to Nigeria, who stated that the key to Aliko Dangote’s success is a massive amount of preferential treatment. The preferential treatment that Browne refers to includes a ban on certain imported goods, goods that the Dangote Group produces. In addition to this, he also believes that the Dangote Group has exclusive import rights to certain products. This all amounts to the Dangote Group, and therefore Dangote himself, holding a monopoly over many different sectors in Nigeria.
There are other stories illustrating Dangote’s underhand tactics, one such is when he threatened to withdraw all of his money from a certain bank, all because they were thinking about lending money to one of his competitors.
12. Aliko Dangote is also a Philanthropist
It is not very well documented, but Aliko Dangote is also quite the philanthropist as well as a remarkable entrepreneur. Despite his highly competitive business mind, his controversial political decisions, and his very uncharitable nature towards competitors, Dangote still finds the time and money to donate to the cause.
The main benefactor of Dangote’s money is a foundation that he set up 20 years ago, The Dangote Foundation. So far, The Dangote Foundation has distributed over $100 million USD to charitable causes in Nigeria and throughout Africa. The foundation supports a variety of causes, but places great emphasis on education, health, and forwarding the youth of Africa, especially Nigeria. To back up these statements, The Dangote Foundation has donated 1 billion Naira to Nigerian universities; half of this went on the development of a business school in Bayero University. The Dangote Foundation is also in partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in an effort to eliminate Polio in Nigeria. There was also a donation of £2 million USD made by the foundation to the World Food Programme, to aid Pakistan after the horrendous floods of 2010.
But Aliko Dangote isn’t stopping there in his philanthropic efforts; he is set to donate $1.2 billion USD to the foundation from his own personal fortune.
Credit: Bloomberg, Bizznigeria
