Happy 65th Birthday Aliko Dangote, The Richest Man In Africa

It is celebration galore as Aliko Dangote, GCON, Nigerian business magnate clocks 65 years old. Aliko, born on 10 April 1957, is the chairman and CEO of Dangote Group, an industrial conglomerate and the wealthiest person in Africa, with an estimated net worth of US$14 billion as of March 2022.

Dangote was born in Kano, Kano State into a wealthy Hausa Muslim family, the son of Mohammed Dangote and Mariya Sanusi Dantata, the daughter of Sanusi Dantata. He is the great-grandson of Alhassan Dantata, the richest West African at the time of his death in 1955.

Dangote was educated at the Sheikh Ali Kumasi Madrasa, followed by Capital High School, Kano. In 1978, he graduated from the Government College, Birnin Kudu. He received a bachelor’s degree in business studies and administration from Al-Azhar University, Cairo.

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 one of the largest conglomerates in Africa with many of its operations in Benin, Ghana, Nigeria, Zambia 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.Happy 65th Birthday Aliko Dangote, The Richest Man In Africa

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. He also donated money to the Nigeria sport ministry to renovate the national stadium, Abuja.

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. In 2015, the HSBC leaks revealed that Dangote was a HSBC client and that he had assets in a tax haven in the British Virgin Islands.