Dangote: 20 Things You May Not Know About The Billioniare Businesman

Aliko Dangote is a Nigerian businessman and industrialist. He is the founder and Chairman of Dangote Group, the largest industrial conglomerate in West Africa.

Dangote, who was born on 10 April 1957, is the first man who built a private refinery in Nigeria.

He is the founder of Dangote Oil refinery, the largest industrial project in the history of Afric. It began producing diesel and aviation fuel in Jan. 2024.

Here are a few things you may not know about the man Aliko Dangote.

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• Dangote comes from a wealthy family. His maternal great-grandfather, Alhassan Dantata, was a businessman. He was one of the wealthiest people in West Africa at the time of his death in 1955.
• Dangote graduated with a degree in business studies and administration from Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, in 1977.

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• Dangote lives in Lagos. He relocated to Lagos from Kano in 1977, at age 20.
• In 1978, he started business trading rice, sugar and cement.

• At 21, Dangote ventured into business when he borrowed N500,ooo from his uncle to import and sell agricultural commodities. His business venture quickly became a success, and as a result, he managed to repay the entire loan within three months of starting operations.
• Dangote married Zainab Dangote in 1977, but they later divorced. He was later married to Mariya Muhammad Rufai. Again, he divorced her. Currently, Dangote is single.
• Dangote Group dominates the sugar market in Nigeria. Its sugar refinery business is the main supplier (70 percent of the market) to the country’s soft drink companies, breweries, and confectioners.

• Femi Otedola, another billionaire businessman, is one of Dangote’s closest friends.

• Dangote has no house abroad except in Lagos and Kano. He reportedly sold houses he had earlier acquired abroad to invest the money in his manufacturing firms.
• Dangote Group employs more than 11,000 Nigeria and employs 24, 000 people across 10 African countries.

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• He played a prominent role in the financing of President Olusegun Obasanjo’s re-election bid in 2003, to which he gave over N200 million (US$2 million).
• Dangote became Nigeria’s first billionaire (in Dollars) in 2007.

• He has three daughters named Halima, Mariya, and Fatimah, and an adopted son named Abdulrahman Fasasi. His first daughter is currently his company’s executive director of commercial operations.
• Dangote became the richest person in Africa in 2013. This was after he reportedly added $9.2 billion to his personal wealth.  This also made him the 30th-richest person in the world at the time.

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• Dangote owns a vehicle assembly company in Kaduna called Dangote Peugeot Automobiles Nigeria Limited (DPAN). The venture is in partnership with Stellantis Group, the parent company of Peugeot, and the Kano and Kaduna state governments. The company commenced operation in 2022 and produces Peugeot 301, 508, 3008, 5008, and Landtrek.

• He owns two private jets and reportedly works 12 hours every day from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. and runs 10 miles on a treadmill almost every day.

• Dangote is an avid fan of English football team Arsenal FC and has shown interest in buying the club.

• In 2021, Dangote was involved in a series of sex scandal. It started when an American woman, Bea Lewis, posted a photo on Instagram showing him in a compromising posture. Following that revelation, other American mistresses of the billionaire emerged: Alla Rounda and Autumn Spikes. Dangote and Autumn Spikes were engaged in a messy fight following the end of their relationship, with the lady asking to be paid $5 million by the Aliko as alimony or compensation for her ‘troubles’. Dangote filed a lawsuit against Spikes where he demanded an “excess of $30,000 from her as damages for libel, cyber stalking, defamation of character and breach of agreement to keep their relationship private and off the social media”.
• In June 2023, Aliko Dangote falls to Africa’s second richest after 12 years at No. 1.
• Dangote is one of the biggest global philanthropist. His foundation, Dangote Foundation, is the biggest private charity organization in Africa. It was setup with an endowment of $1.25 billion.

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