Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, has said he did not rely on inherited wealth to build his multi-billion-dollar business empire, insisting that every fortune he owns today was built from scratch.
Naija News reports that the billionaire industrialist made the remarks in a Bloomberg interview uploaded on January 8, 2020, but which resurfaced online on Tuesday, sparking renewed debate on the origins of his wealth.
Dangote said, “One thing that I’m very, very proud of is that I did not inherit any money from my father. I built everything from scratch to where I am.
“Whatever I inherited from him, which means in assets, I gave that on to charity since then.”
Dangote, 67, reflected on his family history, revealing that his late great-grandfather, Alhassan Dantata, was considered the richest man in West Africa in the 1940s, while his grandfather also ranked among Nigeria’s wealthiest.
“The family name is Dantata. That’s from my maternal side,” he explained.
He admitted that his father was “fairly rich” through business and politics but said he deliberately detached himself from family wealth to carve his own path.
Recalling his early years, Dangote said he worked briefly with his uncle before relocating to Lagos, where he began trading in cement.
Dangote noted, “It was just a very low-key business. When you look at cement, cement is what builds infrastructure and we need a lot of infrastructural deficits.”
He pointed out that Nigeria faces a housing deficit of about 17,000 units, a challenge that is mirrored across Africa. This, he said, influenced his decision to invest heavily in cement manufacturing at a time when imports dominated the market.
“When we started cement in Nigeria, we realised that majority of it was actually imported and that is why we went in there,” Dangote explained.
Today, the Dangote Group has grown into one of Africa’s largest conglomerates with more than 15 subsidiaries across at least 10 countries.
Its publicly listed companies include Dangote Cement Plc, Dangote Sugar Refinery Plc, and NASCON Allied Industries Plc. Other ventures span oil refining, fertiliser production, petrochemicals, steel, transport, logistics, and real estate.
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