If there’s any name that you have not heard of and you live in Africa, it’s definitely not that of Dangote. He is one of the most honored African and does not need much introduction.
Aliko Dangote commonly known as Dangote is a Hausa Muslim. He is the richest man in the whole of Africa. He is also the 162nd richest man in the world. Dangote is an industrialist Mogul who is into cement, pasta, salt, oil and many soft commodities such as wheat, oats and many more.
Being the richest man in Africa he partners with Bill Gates to help fight malnutrition in African children. In this article, we will discuss Aliko Dangote net worth, his early life, education and career overall.
Aliko Dangote Profile
- Full Name: Alhaji Aliko Dangote GCON
- Age: 63 years old
- Nationality: Nigerian
- State of Origin: Kano
- State of residence: Lagos, Nigeria
- Marital status: Single
- Occupation: Industrialist, CEO of Dangote groups and a Philanthropist.
Aliko Dangote Age
Aliko Dangote is an ethnic Hausa Muslim, He was born on the 10th of April, 1957 to Mohammed Dangote (father) and Mariya Sanusi Dantata (mother). He hails from Kano, Kano State. He was born into a rich Muslim family.
His mother, Mariya Sanusi Dantata, is the daughter of Sanusi Dantata, the son of Alhaji Alhassan Dantata, who was the richest man in West African till his death in 1955.
Aliko Dangote Education
Aliko Dangote went to Sheikh Ali Kumasi Madrasa for his early childhood education. He went ahead to attend Capital High School, Kano. He furthered his education In 1978, by attending Government College, Birnin Kudu in 1978.
At age of 21, Dangote graduated from Egypt’s Islamic prestigious universities Al-Azhar University, in Cairo. Where he obtained a bachelor’s degree in business studies and administration.
Aliko Dangote Career
Aliko Dangote told the public that during his young school days, that he usually used the pocket money given by his wealthy grandfather to buy packets of sweets, which he had people to sell for him in order to make profit.
He always spotted out the passion for business and creating wealth was stirred up by his grand father who was also a business tycoon.
After graduating from the University, Aliko Dangote was able to convince one of his uncles to loan him money to start up a business in 1981 The money from the loan gave him a foot hold to import soft commodities at wholesale prices from overseas suppliers.
His major imports were rice from Thailand and sugar from Brazil. He sold those items in small quantities to consumers in his home town at a profitable price. This business quickly became successful and turned into fat cash flow.
Within couple of months he was able to payback his uncle as his daily net profit was about $10,000. In 1997, Dangote found that serving as a middleman came at a very high price, so he built a plant to produce things that he had been importing and selling over the years, things such as; pasta, sugar, salt, and flour.
Dangote successfully expanded his business horizons by constructing a multimillion-dollar manufacturing plant in 2005. The construction was funded with $319 million of his own money in support of $479 million loan from the International Finance Corporation, a sister organization of the World Bank.
Each of the company’s manufacturing divisions has been divided into publicly traded companies such as; Dangote Sugar Refinery PLC, National Salt Company of Nigeria PLC, Dangote Flour Mills PLC., and Dangote Cements PLC.
However, Dangote Cement, is the first largest cement production company in Africa, with a market capitalization of nearly US$14 billion on the Nigeria Stock Exchange. This cement company has subsidiaries in Benin, Cameroon, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa and Zambia.
The Dangote group signed an agreement with the Government of Zambia to set up a US$400 million cement plant in the country on December, 2010. It was built in 2015 and is sited in Ndola, The plant manufactures 42.5-grade cement to compete with the lower-grade but dominant 32.5 products in the market.
This new plant is expected to actualize an annual output of 1.5 million metric tonnes of cement. Dangote Sugar is another huge subsidiary of Dangote, which is competing with Bua Refinery Ltd. and Golden Sugar Co. Dangote Sugar is the largest sugar company in sub-Saharan Africa.
Dangote has always been known to reinvested vast percentage of his profits back into his businesses. This as been one of his secret recipe to successful business growth. During a one of interviews with Al Jazeera News, he stated he and his conglomerates prefers to reinvest their money rather than keeping them in banks.
Aliko Dangote has entered the oil and gas sector. This is to help channel some of his cash reserves to work. Dangote has purchased an oil refinery in Lagos in 2007. His vision is to drastically reduce Nigeria’s dependence on international suppliers for oil and gas.
The $10 billion refinery in Nigeria is expected to produce 650,000 barrels of oil per day in 2020. He has also establishing a 3 million tonnes fertilizer plants in addition to the oil refinery.
Over the years, Dangote groups has expanded into new business niches including telecommunications, real estate, and steel manufacturing. Today his holding company, Dangote Group, is the largest conglomerate in West Africa with 30,000 employees.
Dangote is a dedicated philanthropist, he made an initial endowment of $1.25 billion to the Aliko Dangote Foundation in March 2014, to enforce his foundation scale up its work in health, education and economic empowerment.
In addition, he is in working hand in hand with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to fight polio and other problems such as. He is also on the Board of One Campaign.
Aliko Dangote Relationship
Dangote the African business Mogul was married twice as well divorced twice. Aliko is officially single. His first marriage was at the age of 20 to a woman who was chosen by his parents while the second woman was Maria Aliko Dangote Muhammad Rufai.
Through out his different marriages he is blessed with three beautiful and humble daughters and one adopted son namely; Abdulrahman Fasasi (son), Halima Bello (Dangote) Mariya Dangote and Fatima Dangote.
Aliko Dangote Achievement
Aliko 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 was also honoured as the Forbes Africa Person of the Year in 2014. For six uninterrupted years, 2013, 2014 , 2015, 2016, 2017,and 2018 Forbes ranked Dangote as the ‘Most Powerful Man in Africa’.
In 2014, he was short listed as CNBC’s ‘Top 25 Businessmen in the World’ that changed and shaped the century. In April 2014,
TIME Magazine ranked him among its 100 Most Influential People in the World. In October 2015, Dangote was ranked among ‘50 Most Influential Individuals in the World’ by Bloomberg Markets.
Dangote won ‘The Guardian Man of the Year in 2015 and African Business Leader Award,’ organised by the Africa-America Institute (AAI) in 2016.
Aliko Dangote Net worth
Dangote has an estimated net worth of US$8.3 billion as at May 29, 2020, placing him as the 162nd wealthiest person in the world and the richest person in Africa.
