Aliko Dangote

The Nigerian businessman's fortune surged 557% in the past year, making him the world's biggest gainer in percentage terms and Africa's richest individual for the first time. The catalyst was listing Dangote Cement, which integrated his investments across Africa with his previously public Benue Cement; it now accounts for a quarter of the Nigeria Stock Exchange's total market cap. Already the continent's biggest cement maker, he has plants under construction in Zambia, Tanzania, Congo and Ethiopa and is building cement terminals in Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast and Liberia, among other places. Dangote, who recently bought himself a $45 million Bombardier aircraft for his birthday, has been shuttling back and forth to London for months, in anticipation of a public offering there later this year. Dangote began his career as a commodities trader; built his Dangote Group into conglomerate with interests in sugar, flour milling, salt processing, cement manufacturing, textiles, real estate, and oil and gas. After 11 years, a $23 billion investment, and numerous challenges, the Dangote Refinery began operations in 2024. Located on a vast 6,200-acre site in the Lekki Free Zone, the refinery, at full capacity, will process a remarkable 650,000 barrels per day (b/d), making it the seventh-largest refinery in the world and the largest in Africa. Additionally, the refinery’s adjacent petrochemical complex has an annual production capacity of 3 million metric tons of urea, making it Africa’s largest fertiliser producer. Dangote sees the refinery as part of a larger vision to transform Nigeria, one of the world’s largest crude oil producers, into a major producer of refined petroleum products. This would enable Nigeria to compete with European refineries and supply gasoline to Nigerian consumers.