Aliko Dangote, President/ Chief Executive Officer Dangote Group is Africa’s richest man with a net worth of about $21Billion according to forbes magazine.
The
business mogul, who was born on April 10, 1957, is a graduate of
Business Studies from the Al-Azahar University, Cairo, Egypt. He was the
former President of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE). He started
business in 1978 trading in rice, sugar and cement, before he ventured
into full-scale manufacturing.
Dangote,
who now controls huge holdings of commodities comprising; real estate as
well as telecommunications projects has certain secretes that the
public doesn’t know about him.
Below are the nine things you should know about him;
1.
Dangote, who has been a businessman since he was a child, buys boxes of
sweets and sells them at a profit to his fellow classmates while he was
in primary school in the 1960s. He started the Dangote Group at the age
of 21 after studying business at the University of Cairo.
2.
Dangote, who opened a Twitter account- social network on New Year’s Eve
of 2013, currently has more than 50,000 followers. He uses his tweets
to address malnutrition, the Davos economic conference, and
entrepreneurship although no selfies for the now.
3.
Despite the business mogul’s tight schedule, he frequently engages
himself in jogging sessions, according to him: “Exercise is better than
any medicine I can take. Exercise and sleep”.
4.
According to Brian Browne, former U.S. Consul General to Nigeria,
Dangote receives special treatment from the federal government in the
form of exclusive import rights while high taxes or bans are imposed on
competitors’ imports, a claim he, however, refuted and alleged that he
only maintained friendships with elected official.
5.
The Africa’s richest man is a philanthropist. Through his Dangote
Foundation, more than 10 billion naira has been donated to fight poverty
in the country. Aside business grants, the foundation usually sends
cash transfers to women and children who suffers the worst effects of
poverty in order to alleviate their plight.
6.
Dangote has unbelievably survived multiple plane crashes. He has so far
successfully walked away from three plane crashes. One of those crashes
was responsible for the death of Dangote’s brother and the son of late
General Sani Abacha, in 1996.
7. Dangote is not the
first wealthy person in his family as his great grandfather, Alhassan
Dantata, was probably the richest man in West Africa as at then.
8.
Dangote’s main attention is on his Nigerian homeland as he is very
dedicated to building up the country aside owning holding companies all
over Africa.
“If you give me $5 billion today, I will invest everything here in Nigeria. Let us put our heads together and work” he once said in an interview.
These secrets were not what you were expecting, right? But it’s, nevertheless, motivating and inspiring you would agree.
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