Alhaji Aliko Dangote - Richest Man in Nigeria

The man you are looking at here is not only the richest man in his country, Nigeria but also the whole of Africa. It seems that he is still king of the throne in this one and it does not look like he's going to give up his throne any time soon.

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Aliko Dangote is the founder and CEO of the company Dangote group and he is estimated to be worth $10.1 Billion.

His Early Life

Aliko Dangote was born on 10th April 1957 in the largest northern city, Kano, Nigeria. Some might wonder why he has Alhaji in front of his name.

Well, that's because he has completed his pilgrimage to Mecca which is one of the obligations of every Muslim around the world. It seems that not only has he done it once but he has done it multiple times already.

So his life story might be slightly different compared to other self-made billionaires who have a hard time throughout their childhood. Aliko Dangote was born with a silver spoon in which his father  Mohammed Dangote and his mother Mariya Sanusi Dantata have all the wealth that many could have wished for.

Rumour has it that his family was considered the richest across the African continent. On top of that, even his grandfather, Alhaji Alhassan Dantata was also a billionaire.

I can remember when I was in primary school, I would go and buy cartons of sweets and I would start selling them just to make money. I was so interested in business, even at that time.

Alhaji Aliko Dangote

So it seems that he was already having an entrepreneurship mindset when he was still little as if he was born to become a businessman in the future. When he was still little, he got into his first school at Sheikh Ali Kumasi and later further his studies at Capital High School, Kano.

He then got his bachelor's degree at Al-Azhar University, Cairo in the field of business studies and administration.

The first-ever time he got involved in the business field was in 1978 when he was 21 years old. He got his first startup money from his uncle worth as much as 500,000 Nigerian Naira (equivalent to $3000). At that time, that amount was considered very huge, especially in Nigeria.

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His uncle gave Aliko only 6 months to pay him back the money that was owed and to his uncle's surprise Aliko Dangote managed to pay it back in full and it only required him 3 months to pay everything back.

You might be wondering about what type of business he is dealing with?

In 1978 he started his own business which was he started a company that deals with international trade across Africa. Later in 1989, he decided to venture into the textile business.

Just imagine the number of workers that he had at the time was as much as 6400 workers. In 19 years of time, Aliko Dangote was in the business, he managed to conquer the business and, his business is definitely booming.

One of his strategies in the business compared to his competitors is he managed to have a good supply chain and instead used trucks to seamlessly transport all his goods across the continent. 

Not enough with all of that, the success of his trading business, he also got involved in the construction and manufacturing of raw materials in the year 1997. Some of the factories under the Dangote group were producing sugar, rice, cement as well as pasta.

There were also rumors going around regarding his exclusivity of being the only one authorized to import sugar and rice due to having a close political relationship with the president of Nigeria at the time Olusegun Obasanjo.

He was also known as the cement king between the years 2000 and 2005. However, there were also some risks involved in the business: 

• In the year 2003, Aliko Dangote faced a problem with promoting his products and was forced to restrategize on how to market his cement.
• He had to build a 90km gas piper line to easily transfer his cement
• Build a dam that changes the water level of the river
• Made a loan for a short period of time(90 days) of as much as $480 million USD to accomplish his projects in the long term

There were even reporters which ask him a question on what he would do in case his cement project fail and Aliko Dangote simply replied that he would go out of business.

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Oil

That's not all but Aliko Dangote is also someone who likes to invest his money which he invested a staggering $9 billion USD towards building the biggest oil refinery in the world. The whole place was as big as 10 miles per square foot.

Who would have imagined that the Dangote group which was first started by the money that was lent by Aliko Dangote's uncle to him in 1978 managed to change the face of the company to become the biggest company in the African continent? 

The company is involved in a variety of things including telecommunication, estate, soft drinks, and many more.

Source: Majalah Labur

Also read: Michael Dell Success Story, Founder of Computer Dell