Dangote is ranked by Forbes Magazine as the 23rd richest person in the world and the richest man in Africa. He surpassed Saudi-Ethiopian billionaire Mohammed Hussein Al Amoudi in 2013 by over $2.6 billion to become the world's richest black man.
Early life
Alhaji Aliko Dangote, a northerner from Kano State, Nigeria, was born on the 10th of April 1957 into a wealthy Muslim family. From the time he was young Dangote had an eye on business. He said, "I can remember when I was in primary school, I would go and buy cartons of sweets [sugar boxes] and I would start selling them just to make money. I was so interested in business, even at that time." He studied business at the Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt and thereafter returned to Nigeria to borrow from his uncle Sanusi Abdulkadir Dantata, would eventually provide him a loan of ₦500,000 (Naira, NGN) when he was just 21 years old to start a business.
Business career
The Dangote Group was established as a small trading firm in 1977. Today, it is a multi-trillion naira conglomerate with many of its operations in Benin, Ghana, Nigeria, and Togo. At present, Dangote has enlarged his line of businesses to also cover food processing, cement manufacturing, and freight. The Dangote Group also dominates the sugar market in Nigeria and is a major sugar supplier to the country's soft drink companies, breweries, and confectioners. The Dangote Group has moved from being a trading company to being the largest industrial group in Nigeria and these include: Dangote Sugar Refinery, Dangote Cement, and Dangote Flour, just to mention a few.
