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Aliko Dangote: Biography, Wife, Children, Business career, Net worth, and More

Who is Aliko Dangote?

Aliko Dangote is famous to be Africa’s richest person, he was born in Kano, Kano Nigeria, in 1957. Dangote’s mother is Mariya Sanusi Dantata, the daughter of business mogul Sanusi Dantata.

Dangote’s father Mohammed Dangote was a businessman associated with Sanusi Dantata who is the father of Mariya Dantata. He obtained his primary education at the Sheikh Ali Kumasi Madrasa, and then proceeded to Capital High School Kano.

He graduated in 1978 from the Government College, Birnin Kudu. He graduated from Al-Azhar University in Egypt where he studied Business.

Aliko Dangote Business Career

Upon his graduation, he came back to Nigeria, and then Dangote Group was founded as a small trading firm in 1977 before which he had collected a loan from his uncle and he used the loan to establish his own cement trading business. Years later he transformed the company that became the Dangote Group in 1981. Between 1980 and 1990, Dangote enlarged his operation to include sugar, fish, milk, flour, rice, etc. 

He got grounded in manufacturing and was able to create an opportunity for himself to meet the needs of the consumers within the then fast booming Nigeria economy and her increasing population. Dangote later added salt and sugar refineries with flour mills and a pasta factory to his conglomerate in 1999. A year later he commissioned the Obajana cement plant, the largest in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Business training

In an interview with Time, Dangote disclosed “My great-grandfather was a kola nut trader, and the richest man in West Africa at the time of his death. My father was a businessman and politician. I was actually raised by my grandfather. It’s traditional in my culture for grandparents to take the first grandchild and raise it (Dangote’s older sister died as a baby in a car accident). I had a lot of love, and it gave me a lot of confidence.”

Aliko Dangote Net worth

Dangote became Nigeria’s first billionaire in 2007. He reportedly increased by $9.2 billion, elevating his wealth in 2013, turning him into the thirtieth-richest person in the universe and the number one in Africa. As of April 2022, Dangote is the wealthiest person in Africa, with a net worth of around US$14 billion.

Who is Aliko Dangote’s Wife and Children?

Dangote lives in Lagos, Nigeria, he has been married and divorced twice. He has three daughters – Halima, Mariya, and Fatimah and one adopted son Abdulrahman Fasasi.

Picture of Aliko Dangote and his daughter Halima Dangote

Picture of Fatimah Dangote and her husband

Picture of Aliko Dangote and his daughter Mariya Dangote

Picture of Abdulrahman Fasasi

Luxury

According to Dangote, “I try to take a week’s vacation every two weeks. We live in Lagos, on Victoria Island, but I like to go to Miami with my family. I used to own two homes in Atlanta. But it was a lot of trouble. There are leaky roofs, you have to call people. It takes up too much time to own property everywhere. Now I stay at the St. Regis”.

He has about 25 cars including Porches and Ferraris.

“I used to like cars a lot, too. I had 25 of them, Porches, Ferraris. I would drive from Lagos to Kano at 180 miles per hour. But I stopped that after I had my second daughter.”


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