Nigerian businessman Aliko Dangote has been named Africa’s richest billionaire in Forbes magazine 2018 ranking.
Dangote has remained consistently ahead of the pack for the eighth consecutive year, with a current net worth of $10.3 billion. Although he lost almost $2bn compared to his last year’s worth.
Aliko Dangote emerged the continent’s richest man for the first time in March 2011, with a net worth of $13.8 billion, according to a similar annual report from Forbes and analysts are of the view that his fortune would increase in the next few years, when his group’s refinery, petrochemical, and fertiliser plants, which have so far gulped more than $12 billion, come on-stream to boost Nigeria and Africa’s crude oil refining and supply.
The report, according to the American business magazine, also stated that Dangote, was also ranked as the 66th most powerful person on earth, ahead of Mike Pence, US Vice-President in May 2018 while he clinched the second position in Africa, trailing President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt, who was ranked 45th.
He was also ranked as the sixth most charitable man in the world and was quoted to have once said that, beyond being known as Africa’s richest man, he would also like to be known as the continent’s biggest philanthropist.
He started the Aliko Dangote Foundation in 1981, with a mission to enhance opportunities for social change through strategic investments that improve health and wellbeing, promote quality education, and broaden economic empowerment opportunities.
The foundation was, however, incorporated in 1994 as a charity in Lagos, Nigeria, with a primary focus in health and nutrition, supported by wrap-around interventions in education, empowerment, and humanitarian relief.
Dangote, according to Forbes magazine, was closely followed on the rich list by another Nigerian – the Chairman of Globacom, Mr. Mike Adenuga, who was ranked the second richest person in the continent, with a total net worth of $9.2 billion.
