Aliko Dangote was born in 10th April 1957 Dangote hails from a very prominent business family that lived in Nigeria for many years. He is the great grandson of Alhaji Alhassan Dantata, the richest African at the time of his death in 1955. Mohammed Dangote and Hajia. Mariya Sanusi Dantata are his parents. He is an ethnic Hausa Muslim from the Kano state.
Since at a little age while in Primary school Dangote has had passion for business, he said “I can remember when I was in primary school, I would go and buy cartons of sweets [sugar boxes] and I would start selling them just to make money. I was so interested in business, even at that time.”
Dangote went to Sheikh Ali Kumasi Madrasa (Arabic School), and the the Capital High School, Kano. Dangote went to college in Egypt where he pursued a course in Business studies from Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt.
The Dangote Group was established as a small trading firm in 1977, the same year Dangote relocated to Lagos to expand the company. Today, it is a multi-trillion naira conglomerate with many of its operations in Benin, Ghana, Nigeria, and Togo. Dangote has expanded to cover food processing, cement manufacturing, and freight. The Dangote Group also dominates the sugar market in Nigeria and is a major supplier to the country’s soft drink companies, breweries, and confectioners. The Dangote Group has moved from being a trading company to being the largest industrial group in Nigeria including Dangote Sugar Refinery, Dangote Cement, and Dangote Flour.
On 14 November 2011, Dangote was awarded Nigeria’s second highest honour, the Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger (GCON) by the President, Goodluck Jonathan.
In July 2012, Dangote approached the Nigerian Ports Authorities to lease an abandoned piece of land at the Apapa Port, which was approved. He later built facilities for his flour company there.
Dangote reportedly added $9.2 billion to his personal wealth in 2013, according to the Bloomberg Index, which made him the 30th richest person in the world, in addition to being the richest person in Africa.
In 2014, the Nigerian government said Dangote had donated 150 million Naira (US$750,000) to halt the spread of ebola.
In Nigeria today, Dangote Group with its dominance in the sugar market and refinery business is the main supplier (70% of the market) to the country’s soft drinks companies, breweries and confectioners. It is the largest refinery in Africa and the third largest in the world, producing 800,000 tonnes of sugar annually. 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 seed and ginger to several countries. It also has major investments in real estate, banking, transport, textiles and oil and gas. The company employs over 11,000 people and is the largest industrial conglomerate in West Africa.
Dangote has diversified into telecommunications and has started building 14,000 kilometres of fibre optic cables to supply the whole of Nigeria. As a result, Dangote was honoured in January 2009 as the leading provider of employment in the Nigerian construction industry.
He said, “Let me tell you this and I want to really emphasize it…nothing is going to help Nigeria like Nigerians bringing back their money. If you give me $5 billion today, I will invest everything here in Nigeria. Let us put our heads together and work.”
The company operates in Nigeria and other African countries, including Benin, Ethiopia, Senegal, Cameroon, Ghana, South Africa, Togo, Tanzania, and Zambia. As of February 2017, he had an estimated net worth of US$12.5 billion.
Dangote is ranked by Forbes magazine as the 67th richest person in the world and the richest in Africa; he peaked on the list as the 23rd richest person in the world in 2014. He surpassed Saudi-Ethiopian billionaire Mohammed Hussein Al Amoudi in 2013 by over $2.6 billion to become the world’s richest person of African descent
Aliko was a serial monogamist, even though he could have chosen not to be so. He’s been married three times before his current wife. He has four children, Mariya, Halima, Fatima, and an adopted son Abdulrahman Fasasi. Not much is known about his wife.