Sweet Beginnings :How Aliko Dangote Built an African Empire

By Aksah Italo
Published on 11/06/25

There was nothing of the giant in the young boy who once roved the streets of Kano selling sweets except, perhaps, an unshakable spark of ambition.

Yet that same boy, guided by an instinct for enterprise, would one day grow into Africa’s wealthiest man and one of the world’s most formidable industrialists.

Aliko Dangote, the Nigerian billionaire who now commands an empire stretching across continents, began humbly,  selling candies for profit at just eight years old. It was a simple hustle that would ignite a lifelong passion for business.

“That’s when my love for business began,” he recalls.

Though born into wealth, he famously chose to  write his own history.

“Everything I inherited, I gave to charity,” he once said. “I wanted to build everything from scratch.”

His grandfather, Sanusi Dantata, a prosperous rice and oats trader in Kano, played a pivotal role after Aliko lost his father at a young age. It was from him that Dangote inherited not riches, but an entrepreneurial fire that would define his life.

After completing his undergraduate studies in business at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt at the age of 20, Dangote joined his uncle’s cement distribution business. But he soon realized that he was destined for something far bigger. In 1977, he moved to Lagos and borrowed 3,000 dollars from his uncle to start his own trading venture, focusing on commodities like sugar, flour, and cement.

By 1981, his small operation had grown into the Dangote Group, a sprawling enterprise that would come to dominate Nigeria’s markets. He ventured into food processing, sugar, salt, flour, pasta, before turning his gaze toward the one thing Nigeria desperately needed: infrastructure.

At the time, Nigeria was importing most of its cement despite a massive housing deficit. Dangote saw an opportunity where others saw dependency. In 2003, he built his own cement plant, starting with a capacity of five million tonnes when the country was producing only 1.7 million annually. It was the beginning of a new industrial revolution in Nigeria.

His group’s holdings would soon include Dangote Cement, Dangote Sugar Refinery, Dangote Flour Mills, Nascon Allied Industries, and more,  expanding operations across the continent to countries including Ethiopia.

By Octobor 2025, Dangote’s net worth had climbed to 30.3 billion dollars, cementing his status as Africa’s richest man and the 75th richest person in the world.

Now 68, Dangote’s empire stretches across industries and borders, but his beginnings were humble, shaped as much by discipline and his ability to eye business opportunity.

“ I can spot a business opportunity from miles away,” he said.

His success didn’t come from oil, the usual wellspring of Nigerian fortunes, but from transforming what others neglected.

“He took over failing state enterprises and made them profitable,” a business analyst once noted. “He built wealth from production, not extraction.”

He first built his business by privatizing state-owned companies, particularly in manufacturing sectors like cement and sugar, and developing a business model of "backward integration" to replace imports with locally produced goods.

 Yet his ambitions continue to tower beyond personal wealth.

 While Nigeria stands among the world’s leading crude oil producers, it has long suffered a paradox: a nation rich in oil but poor in refining capacity, forced to import most of its fuel. It was a contradiction Aliko Dangote could not ignore.

“We were compelled to import fuel even though we had oil in abundance,” he said. “It didn’t make sense.”

In 2016, he embarked on one of Africa’s most ambitious private industrial ventures the 20 billion  dollars Dangote Oil Refinery in Lagos. Alongside it, he built a fertilizer plant and a power station, creating a vast industrial hub designed to reshape Nigeria’s economic landscape.

The refinery, which began operations in early 2023, is now the largest in Africa, marking a turning point in the continent’s quest for petroleum independence.

 Dangote recently announced plans to more than double refining capacity to 1.4 million barrels per day, positioning his company among the world’s major energy players.

His journey, however, has not been without challenges. Building a refinery of such scale amid bureaucratic hurdles, policy resistance, and public skepticism tested even his resolve. Yet, as the project began to take shape, so too did Nigeria’s broader economic revival.

“The road was tough,” he said.

According to the World Bank’s latest economic outlook, Nigeria’s economy expanded by 3.9 percent year-on-year in the first half of 2025, up from 3.5 percent during the same period in 2024,  growth driven by strong performance in services, agriculture, and non-oil industries, alongside improvements in oil production.

Today, Dangote Group controls the largest oil refining operation in Africa, surpassing even some of the world’s established refining giants, a testament to one man’s determination to rewrite the story of African industry.

Today, Dangote Industries controls major stakes in sugar, salt, oil, fertilizer, and packaged food. The group’s publicly traded companies, Dangote Cement, Dangote Sugar, and Nascon Allied Industries, collectively make up about one-third of the Nigerian Stock Exchange’s total market capitalization.

His biggest asset, the refinery, stands as a symbol of African industrial ambition, and of Dangote’s belief that “only Africans can truly develop Africa.”

Despite his fortune, Dangote remains unassuming. He is known to drive himself around Lagos, dressed in neatly tailored blue suits, occasionally stopping for selfies with fans who recognize him.

A practicing Muslim, he bears the title “Alhaji” after completing the pilgrimage to Mecca. Twice divorced and three successful daughters, he lives quietly in Lagos and counts Arsenal FC as his favorite football team.

“I plan on buying a stake in Arsenal one day,” he once remarked with a grin.

His guiding principles are disarmingly simple: work hard, stay focused, and understand every corner of your business.

 “I know my business inside out,” he says.  

Philanthropy remains a central part of his life. “My greatest pleasure,” he says, “is  investing in new businesses and giving the rest away.”

Dangote’s influence extends far beyond Nigeria. In Ethiopia, his group is investing 400 million dollars to double the production capacity of its Mugher cement plant in Oromia, boosting output from 2.5 million to five million tonnes annually.

He calls Ethiopia one of the group’s most promising markets, particularly after recent reforms in its foreign exchange policy that allow investors to repatriate dividends and loan repayments freely.

Still, the terrain is not without challenges. Ethiopia’s delicate economic balancing act could test even Dangote’s legendary resolve. Yet he remains undeterred.

Across 17 African countries, the Dangote Group stands as the continent’s largest industrial conglomerate,  its cement arm the biggest in West Africa, and the first Nigerian company listed on the Forbes Global 2000.

“Only Africans,” Dangote insists, “can be developed by Africa.”

From that boy who once sold sweets on the streets of Kano, to the man building refineries, factories, and futures across a continent, it is clear that Aliko still hopes to continues building, investing, shaping Africa’s economy.