A lot of Nigerians were surprised a few days ago when they saw Alhaji Aliko Dangote and Alhaji Abdulsamad Isyaku Rabiu standing side by side to address the press inside Aso-Rock where they had both gone to meet with Pres. Bola Tinubu who invited the 2 gentlemen and other businessman to an Economic Advisory meeting on how to best tackle the economy.
After the President, members of the new committee came out to brief the Press on what was discussed.
Aliko was the first to speak. He was very optimistic that the economy will improve going by all that was discussed.
Samad, who was standing next to him spoke next and also gave optimism that the committee members would ensure that the Economy picks up and that the foreign exchange situation will improve.
Many people were surprised to see the 2 billionaire businessmen holding similar views and standing side-by-side.
This is because until recently both were sworn enemies. Both didn’t use to see eye-to-eye. They were rivals who play in the same sector.
City People gathered that Pres. Tinubu was the one who ended the age-long rift between the 2 Kano born businessmen.
Abdul Samad Isyaku Rabiu is the son of late Khalifah Isyaku Rabiu, who was one of Nigeria’s foremost industrialists in the 1970s and 1980s. Abdul Samad is the Founder and Chairman of BUA Group, conglomerate concentrating on manufacturing, infrastructure and agriculture and producing a revenue in excess of $2.5 billion. He is also the Chairman of the Nigerian Bank of Industry (BOI).
On 7 July 2020, Forbes estimated Rabiu’s wealth at $3.2 billion, putting him 716th in the global billionaire’s club. In January 2022, he was reported to be the second richest man in Nigeria. In April 2022 he was reported to be the fifth-richest man in Africa, with a net worth of $6.7 billion. In January 2023, Rabiu was reported to have become the 4th richest man in Africa.
Abdul Samad Rabiu was born and raised in Kano in the North-Western part of Nigeria. He attended Capital University in Columbus, Ohio and returned to Nigeria at the age of 24, to oversee the family business. This was when his father Isyaku Rabiu, was being detained by the administration of General Muhammadu Buhari for allegedly not paying rice import duties.
Abdul Samad Rabiu established BUA International Limited in 1988 for the sole purpose of commodity trading. The company imported rice, edible oil, flour, and iron and steel.
In 1990, the government, which owned Delta Steel Company, contracted with BUA to supply its raw materials in exchange for finished products. This provided a much-needed windfall for the young company. BUA expanded further into steel, producing billets, importing iron ore, and constructing multiple rolling mills in Nigeria.
Years later, BUA acquired Nigerian Oil Mills Limited, the largest edible oil processing company in Nigeria. In 2005 BUA started two flour-milling plants, in Lagos and in Kano. By 2008, BUA had broken an 8-year monopoly in the Nigerian sugar industry by commissioning the second largest sugar refinery in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2009 the company went on to acquire a controlling stake in a publicly listed Cement Company in Northern Nigeria and began to construct a $900 million cement plant in Edo State, completing it in early 2015.
Like Samad, Aliko Dangote is also a businessman and industrialist. He is best known as the Founder, Chairman, and CEO of the Dangote Group, the largest industrial conglomerate in West Africa. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimated his net worth at $16.1 billion in November 2023, making him the richest person in Africa, the world’s richest black person, and the world’s 107th richest person overall.
Dangote was born into a wealthy Hausa Muslim family in Kano. His mother, Mariya Sanusi Dantata, was the daughter of businessman Sanusi Dantata. His father, Mohammed Dangote, was a business associate of Dantata. Through his mother, he is the great-grandson of Alhassan Dantata, the richest person in West Africa at the time of his death in 1955. Dangote’s brother, Sani (1959/60–2021), was also a businessman. Dangote was educated at the Sheikh Ali Kumasi Madrasa, followed by Capital High School in Kano. In 1978, he graduated from the Government College, Birnin Kudu. He received a bachelor’s degree in business studies and administration from Al-Azhar University in Cairo.
His Dangote Group was established as a small trading firm in 1977, the same year Dangote relocated to Lagos to expand the company.Dangote received a ¦ 500,000 loan from his uncle to begin trading in commodities, including bagged cement as well as agricultural goods like rice and sugar. In the 1990s, he approached the Central Bank of Nigeria with the idea that it would be less expensive for the bank to allow his transport company to manage their fleet of staff buses, a proposal that was also approved.
Today, the Dangote Group is one of the largest conglomerates in Africa, with international operations in Benin, Ghana, Zambia, and Togo. The Dangote Group has moved from being a trading company to being the largest industrial group in Nigeria, encompassing divisions like Dangote Sugar Refinery, Dangote Cement, and Dangote Flour. Dangote Group dominates the sugar market in Nigeria, and its refinery business is the main supplier (70 percent of the market) to the country’s soft drink companies, breweries, and confectioners. The company employs more than 11,000 people in West Africa.
In July 2012, Dangote approached the Nigerian Ports Authority to lease an abandoned piece of land at the Apapa Port, which was approved. He later built facilities for his sugar company there. It is the largest refinery in Africa and the third largest in the world, producing 800,000 metric tons of sugar annually. The Dangote Group owns salt factories and flour mills and is a major importer of rice, fish, pasta, cement, and fertilizer. The company exports cotton, cashew nuts, cocoa, sesame seeds, and ginger to several countries. Additionally, it has major investments in real estate, banking, transport, textiles, oil, and gas.
In February 2022, Dangote announced the completion of the Peugeot assembling facility in Nigeria following his partnership with Stellantis Group, the parent company of Peugeot, and the Kano and Kaduna state governments. The new automobile company, Dangote Peugeot Automobiles Nigeria Limited (DPAN) factory, which is based in Kaduna, commenced operations with the roll-out of the Peugeot 301, 508, 3008, 5008, and Landtrek.
On 22 May 2023 in Lekki, Nigeria, Dangote commissioned the Dangote Refinery. The plant plans to export surplus petrol, turning Africa’s biggest oil producer into an export hub for petroleum products. It also plans to export diesel, according to Dangote, who funded the refinery’s construction. The refinery is situated on a 6,180-acre (2,500 hectares) site at the Lekki Free Trade Zone, Lekki, Lagos State. It is supplied with crude oil by the largest sub-sea pipeline infrastructure in the world at 1,100 kilometres (680 mi) long.
Dangote became Nigeria’s first billionaire in 2007. Dangote reportedly added $9.2 billion to his personal wealth in 2013, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, making him the 30th-richest person in the world at the time, and the richest person in Africa. In 2015, the HSBC leaks revealed that Dangote was a HSBC client and that he had assets in a tax haven in the British Virgin Islands.
As of June 2022, Dangote is the wealthiest person in Africa, with an estimated net worth of US$20 billion.
