In Good Company with Nicolai Tangen - Aliko Dangote: Building Africa's industrial future from the ground up

Episode Date: May 13, 2026

Nicolai Tangen sits down with Aliko Dangote, Founder and CEO of the Dangote Group, Africa's largest industrial conglomerate, to explore his journey from a small Lagos trading firm to a sprawling empire spanning cement, fertiliser, petrochemicals, and the world's largest single-train oil refinery. They discuss overcoming fierce opposition, Africa's infrastructure challenges, and why its booming youth population signals enormous opportunity. Dangote's mission? Pioneering the industrialisation of an entire continent. Tune in for an insightful conversation!In Good Company is hosted by Nicolai Tangen, CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management. New full episodes every Wednesday, and don't miss our Highlight episodes every Friday.  The production team for this episode includes Isabelle Karlsson and PLAN-B's Niklas Figenschau Johansen, Sebastian Langvik-Hansen and Pål Huuse. Background research was conducted by Karoline Woie. Watch the episode on YouTube: Norges Bank Investment Management - YouTubeWant to learn more about the fund? The fund | Norges Bank Investment Management (nbim.no)Follow Nicolai Tangen on LinkedIn: Nicolai Tangen | LinkedInFollow NBIM on LinkedIn: Norges Bank Investment Management: Administrator for bedriftsside | LinkedInFollow NBIM on Instagram: Explore Norges Bank Investment Management on Instagram Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi everybody. I'm Nicola Tangan, the CEO of the Norwegian Soin Wealth Fund, and today I have a real pleasure sitting down with Aliko Dengote. Aliko is the founder and the CEO of the Dangote Group, Africa's largest industrial conglomerate. Nearly 50 years ago, he started with a small trading firm in Nigeria, and today his empire stretches across the continent. He has built what many said was impossible, a large-scale African industry from scratch. Warm welcome. Thank you very much, Dr. It's a pleasure having you. It's great to be here. How did it all start? Well, I started as a trading company in 1978. And what kind of things did you trade? Cement.

At that time, I started first with cement. I was getting four or five trucks and trading them there in Lagos. And then later on now I got into fish, into rice, into sugar. And, you know, we started, we continue to expand. my first import of sugar was actually in 1980. Wow. You know, and everything was under import license. So I got a license.

And you have family, I mean, your family had been into trading for several generations, right? Several generations. Your grand, your grand-grandfather? My great-grand, you know, from the maternal side, my mom's grandfather, they call him Al-Hassan Dantata. He was actually even trading, you know, Nigeria, Ghana, you know, and he died in 1955 before I was born. But he was the richest West African at that time during his time. And of course, my own late grandfather, Sunucidantata, he was actually the richest Nigerian too at some point.

And you grew up with your grandfather? I grew up with my grandfather because my father died when I was just about eight years old. You know, so. But was your grandfather who told you how to trade? who taught me how to trade, he sent me to school and this. But then, actually, I never ever grew with my father. I've never said with my father. You know, because when I was born, I was the first grandson.

I know in our tradition, first grandchild will now go and stay with grandparents. So my sister, my late sister, happened to be the first grandchild. So they took her away And then the next was me A boy So they also took me away So both me and my sister We grew up with my own grandparents

Wow Yes What's the key To trading well The key First of all is actually Discipline You have to be very very disciplined

You have to know what trade in It's not that you'll be Jack of all trades No You must choose what do you really want to do for your life and then you pick up and concentrate on that and then pleasure and business they don't mix at all and that is the kind of discipline that I got my grandfather used to start working from six in the morning and he worked till you know

late had a very simple life some days he drive himself That is how simple that, you know, he was. Very disciplined, honest person. I actually took a lot of things from him. What did you take from him? First of all, to be very honest, to make sure that you are fair to everybody, to be also generous.

He was very generous. To tell you how generous he was, he gave out all his assets and money before he passed. And then also in terms of, of business, he has always been very, very, very fair. When you say that business and pleasure don't mix, does it mean that you don't like what you do? I love what I do.

So when you look at the business, for example, today, right? Why is it that I work, people see that I work so hard? Do you know why? Because my business is actually my hobby. I take my business as a hobby. Because if I take it as a job, I won't work this hard. How hard do you work? I work.

Let me give you an example. I go to bed, maybe sometimes 11, 12, but I wake up around 5 in the morning. I go to the gym. By 7.30, 8, I'm done. Then I go to my office. And I work as hard as any staff. And you are close to 70 now? I'm close to 70, yes.

I'm 69. I turn 60. just a month ago, actually. About three weeks ago, I turned to 69. But I think that discipline is good because I don't want to, let me tell you something, you know, nuclear. For example, when I decided to go into industry, you know what I did? I sold all my properties in the U.S.

I had two houses in the U.S., big mansions, and I had a house in U.K. And I wanted to really sit in Nigeria and concentrate. Why? You know, sometimes when you own a house, a holiday home anywhere, you have to create that time to go and use that property. So now my life is very simple. Wherever I go, I use hotels. I pay. When I leave, nobody will call me and say, I have a bus pipe or something is wrong.

So I'm committed to what I do. And I just don't do things offered. I always create a vision. It's just like now we created a vision 2030. So that I know I have a target to meet. I just don't do business on a normal business. No, no, no, all my businesses that are targeted. How do you decide which businesses to be in?

Because you could have chosen everything. And then you've had a few things and you've focused in on fewer things. Well, I first of all look at what do we need? as people. What is it that we're supposed to be producing and we're importing? So we do what you call a

backward integration which means what we are importing now we produce it. We produce what we need. And we are now producing things that when you wake up as a human being every morning you must use part of what we produce.

So that's like cement, sugar. We do cement. But you have all tried, you tried flour and you tried textile and you exited that. I existed that, yes. Because of the foreign exchange challenges, that is why we left the flour, you know, meal.

But today, we are very, very good in terms of exports. If you look at it now, part of what we are announcing is that when we, when you invest in any of our business, going forward in the cement, for example, in the refinery, in the petrochemical, in the fat, in the fatality. Liza in the port, we guarantee to pay you dividend in dollars because we are very well into exports. 80% of our revenue will be in dollars. So that is why we are now saying that, look, yes, you can have a choice if you want

for locals who can pay you in NERA. If you don't want NERRA, you don't want to do risk. You know, because most foreign investors sometimes, when they invests, you, you know, invest in a company. What actually matters to them is that when they get their dividend, it's difficult to also get money to buy and remit your money. But we have addressed that issue. We are saying that look, invest. And you generally reinvest the money back into the business. Oh, all our business, because if you look at denotes of industries right from inception to date, we have never ever paid any dividend. If we are going to get dividend, we only get it from

companies that we listed. But companies that are wholly owned, by Dongwate Industries, which they are not listed. We never ever take a dime out of the company. But Aliko, when you look at the group now, what would you say are the, let's say, three most important decisions you have made that has made this a success? Actually, major decision is to now go into cement

in trying to save a lot of African countries because they are struggling. Cement was selling for $250 a tonne in countries like Zambia, in Congo, Brazil, in Nigeria, you have to pay and wait for three months. So we realized that, look, people who are in cement, they are not really serious about making cement available. So we now came in and we have now invested heavily. And you're in 14 countries in cement? We're in 14 countries.

Now again, when you look at, you know, oil, in Africa, we have a lot of countries that produce oil. but they don't refine. So they export the crude oil and now they import the products. And importation costs a lot of money. It actually goes deep into our own reserves. So when I look at Nigeria, for example, today, I say, okay, fine.

But we've been having fuel queues for 52 years. Sometimes people used to stay at field. During Christmas, you might have to go and cure for two days. trying to buy fuel for a country that produces oil. And we have tried, government refineries, they are all destroyed, they are not really doing well. So we took you fine, let me take this bold decision. So then you decide, I'll make a refinery.

I decided that I'm going to make a refinery. And let's make the biggest... The biggest ever. In the world? In the world, ever, in the world. 50% more than the biggest. $20 billion. $20 billion of investment.

Tell me about it. So we started with that. We launched the project in 2013. We have had issues of the land for five years. One land, three and a half years. The other land, one and a half years, that we have not been able to get even access to it. All this will have been blocked by what you call the mafia in oil business

to make sure that we don't come and address these issues. But we were not deterred at all. We were actually focused. We knew what we were doing. and nuclear when we started right the exchange rate of NERA was 156 we even got up to 1,900 but we still went ahead we had to build our port because there was no port in the country that could take those heavy equipment one piece was 3,000 tons we have another which is the regenerator then we have another piece which is the crude distillation

unit. That is 2,700 tons. So we have almost about 30 of this equipment and we build the refinery importing most of these preheaters in modular forms. So you have to build a harbor, you had

to be roads. We have to do water. Water is 440 million liters of water which is treated water. So our water department alone is more than, let me say, in hectare, in size is more than 30 hectares.

How many people worked on this? 67,000 people worked on the building of the refinery, and it took us even... This is a size, that's the size of the town where I grew up. Well, you know, but, I mean, that is how we had to actually now, because we are building something. And luckily, let me tell you what we would.

don't know. Luckily for us, we didn't know what we were building. Because if you knew, I was faced with the plan and the drawings all at once, right? I wouldn't have built this refinery. I would have actually chicken out. Yes. Because, I mean, you know, when we started, you know, it's like you started swimming across the ocean. When you get middle of the ocean, you realize that the tide was bad. When you go forward, it's bad. When you go forward, it's bad. When you go, go backwards. So you have to work forward. And that is what we did. We have to just keep working and working and believing that we will deliver. Where did you get to money from? We got a lot of support. You know, first of all, we were actually meant to fund most of this

from our internally generated funds. But because of the devaluation, so we have to now rely on African Bank, African finance, Operation, Zenith Bank, Access Bank, UBA, and a couple of some of the local banks. But of course, we also have a very good relationship with the Standard Bank of South Africa and at the beginning Standard Chartered Bank of UK. We were very, very, very, very lucky. And what happened? When we finish the refinery, things now have turned out to be much more than our own expectations.

What are you seeing on the back of the crisis in the Middle East in terms of that business? Well, actually, all your businesses, what's the effect on your business? Well, the effect on our businesses is actually more of beneficiary than actually downside. Because if you look at urea, where we are producers. Which is the fertilizer. Which is fertilizer. Today, fertilizer is in a very high demand. Not really in the high demand.

And in February before the Middle Eastern crisis, we were selling a ton for about $400. Today, we are selling a ton of, you know, fertilizer for $850. And we are actually oversold. In plastics, polypropylene, it has moved from 900. In UK today, it's about $3,000. Okay. And for us, if not because of the polypropylene were producing today,

all the plastic industry in Nigeria, which they are very huge, they are almost like number two or number three in terms of employment, they would have shut down because that's nowhere you can even get it. Our aviation were oversold until the middle of July,

you know, and we're producing 20 million liters a day. Where do you source your cruise? We source about 56% from Nigeria, some from other Angola. We buy quite from Angola. We buy from Libya. We buy from US. At a point we are doing almost about 7 to 8 cargoes of WTI from, you know, US. But we are getting more of Nigeria's crude now.

So, you know, we have to buy now 21 cargoes. every month. That's how big we are. And, you know, more than doubling the refinery, you know, in the next 30 months, will be at $1.4 million, which is huge. What are the forces which you've been trying to work against you in this project? You mentioned the kind of, you know, the kind of mafia situation. Well, the people who are actually benefiting because Nigeria was given almost about $10 billion

dollars every a subsidy so there are shippers who are making tons of money there are traders who are making tons of money buying the crude and sending us you know product they use it they say that you know it's a trade which they give you crude and then you supply them with products there are also the local people because it was subsidized so a lot of people very few people are getting allocation so they are making tons of billions of nera so these are the people that are not agreeing for us to settle down because they believe that no we are coming here to displace them which is i mean that's of of course that's what we have done now absolutely and now you're going to replace more people because you are planning to do a project in tanzania

Tanzania, there are a couple of countries that they say, okay, look, what has happened in the Middle East, we don't want to rely on the supply anymore from there. We need our own refinery. So Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, and some of the other countries like, you know, Rwanda and coal. When we build the refinery, the same size, 690, we'll be able to serve up to Ethiopia.

Yeah. Are you going to build all this refineries? Yeah, we're going to. We're going to build. So what's the total, what's the total spend on this? We have now the group, as a group wide, we have $45 billion to spend. But I know we're also doing LNG in Nigeria. We're doing a gas infrastructure to remove all the gas we are flaring in the southern part, an eastern part, bringing it to the west, where we are setting off an LNG, you know, plant.

About 12 million tons of LNG, each train would be about 6 million. How are you going to pipe? You're going to pipe this together? We're piping from there down, and then we have the gas treatment plant. You know, the Nigerian gas is an associated gas. So you have to treat it before you can now use it to regasify. You know, so what we are trying now to do is to make sure that, yes, We look at our income.

What is our income stream? What is our revenue? And what is the EBIDA that we have in between 2026 to 2030? What is the gap that we have? What is the another insurance gap that we need to fill? And this is what we have done. And that's why we're coming off with selling part of the business, getting more investors into the business,

and also making sure that we're going to. continue to, you know, as late on the business, cement going to 100 million tons. In cement, really, we don't even need much money. We are getting financing and the cash generation is very liquid, is heavy. So we'll be able to actually fund this $45 billion, which will eventually take us to $100 billion of revenue, because our target is to get $100 billion by 2030. with a market valuation of maybe more than $250 billion. Because as we speak today, last year our EBIDA was $3 billion.

But the target by 2030 is to be 10 times that amount is to be at over 30 billion of EBITA. What's the difference between thinking big and thinking too big? What is the difference between thinking big? Because if you think big, you grow big. When you think small, you don't grow at all. So you have to, first of all, know that the business you are going in, it's a business that you know in and out. It's like myself and any of the staff, 10 of the topmost staff,

when you work them later at night, they will tell you the process of each and every part of our business. So we don't think small because, first of all, we know that the market were operating. that's big gap. But how do you make sure you don't overstretch? No, we don't overstretch because we make sure that whatever that we do are on in terms of funding. We can fund it with no sweat. We have a lot of financial institutions that they believe in us

and they are ready to go ahead and back us financially to be able to deliver. That's number one. Number two, they know that we have history of delivery or projects. So since we have history of. delivery of project, they know that yes, their money is not going to be at risk. We have delivered a refinery that has never ever been built with petrochemicals. And we managed 67,000 workers at sight. We built during the most difficult times, which is COVID.

We built in a very difficult environment, which is Nigeria. And we were able to deliver. When we delivered, did we really commission? Did this really work? Very well. The answer is yes the refinery has been tested. We have now processed even crude at 661 000 barrels per day. So we have demonstrated that capability where now a lot of financial institutions are seen that yes If it is Dengote you are doing this project we are there to back you because we know that you can deliver you have the capacity and you have the knowledge and you have the experience. So now you have 18 businesses in 17 countries what are the

What are the biggest risks you think? Well, the biggest risk for us is actually if there are civil war, which is not, I mean, it's not in the offing at all. The other biggest risk is, you know, government inconsistencies in policies of which were addressing that one because if you look at like a refinery, the national oil company already on 7.5% 7.25% and they are

trying to buy more. We are those that are saying that no. We want to now spread it and have everybody to be part of. So these are the two biggest risks that we have. The other one was to do with infrastructure. But what we are doing also

equal to tell you, the infrastructure we are working with government. You know what we are doing today? We have roads which there are more than 3 billion dollars which we are building. So the issue is that because our taxes, our companies are doing well, so the taxes are high.

Because you're the biggest taxpayer in Nigeria. Well, yes. So now what we are doing is that we're building roads. When we build the infrastructure as roads, there is a government policy where they allow us to defray what we have invested in the roads over a period of three years. First year, we take 50%, second year, 25%, third year 25%. So we don't really wait for government to give us that infrastructure.

We are now building the infrastructure to be able to absorb the kind of businesses that we are doing and not only for us, for the other investors in Nigeria. But what are the challenges when you are the biggest employer in the country? You are the biggest taxpayer. And you are dependent on the government. What are the challenges operating in that environment? We are not depending really on the government.

No, because if you look at it, it's like anywhere in the world. Today, people who are operating in America, for example, tomorrow morning, if Mr. Trump works up from the wrong side of the bed, he can bring a regulation that can either help them or try to slow them down, which I think today those things are changing. Even in Africa, because the governments, they believe that the only way, for them to, you know, create jobs, okay, to create employment is through the private sector because the government is already full to capacity. They don't have the resources to do that.

But depending on the private sector, where now you give very good investment policies, right? Given those good investment policies, it means that it has made the governments to be partners. How are they partners? You know, today, if I run the business, even if I don't make money, I have generated a revenue where the government will collect VAT and they collected minimum taxation. So government in some of this,

like our cement business, I keep telling people that government is making more money than us because of the various taxes that we pay. But we're happy because we're also growing. So we're okay with that. You know, we want to also behave and be a good socially irresponsible company.

And that's what we are. So it is a partnership where government will now give very good investment policies, good regulation and making sure that, yes, we also don't abuse the system, which you don't.

What is it that foreign investors don't understand when it comes to doing business in Africa? What they don't really understand, there's one thing that really that is baffling them. Okay, fine. If we, well, what you are saying is good, how come we, Africans,

are not investing in our own economies. Because the mistakes that would be making in the past is that we are looking for foreign investors. But foreign investors are only attracted by domestic investors. So, and that's what we are doing today, Nicola. Because if you look at it, we are investing heavily. I mean, we don't even take money out of the business. So majority of companies today,

I can just mention a few, like Adnock, were in a very big discussion with them and we want to have a very serious partnership in fertilizer, in the oil business and in any other businesses like infrastructure. People are looking at infrastructure. That's why we're building the biggest, deepest port in Africa, just about 60 kilometers away from Lagos.

So these are the sort of things that we are doing, which I believe now the government, also themselves. They realize that, look, for me to deliver on my electorate promises, I have to work with the private sector. So that has actually given us an insurance, because if the government disrupts any of our business, they will be the first ones to suffer before us. How different are the African countries in terms of culture and company culture? How different is it to do business in the various countries? It's not really very difficult, because it's not really very difficult.

depends on what kind of culture you try to create in your own organization. If you have a very solid organization, you have very good culturally, you know, trained staff. It's as good as being operating anywhere in the world. So, I mean, there's actually no issues about that at all. You know, like what I told you, we just don't go and pick up people from the street and employ them. No.

We have an academy. We have graduate training. these are people that we employ the best or the best in universities and we put them through what you call graduate training and once they are, you know, we have always been giving them a choice to be fair because we are the big cooperation in the country or even in the continent. We are saying that, look, if you are happy, stay with us,

you have a guaranteed job. But after you are training, you might as well even if you have a better offer from Shell or any other company, you can go there. So we are actually contributing to the national development of the country. And now we are in 14 African countries. What we always do also is to go to these 14 African countries and bring them in to trend them. We have also what you have, what you call young global leaders, which you have now trained over 200 Africans.

And it costs us a lot of money. because it's in partnership with the Davos, with the World Economic Forum. So World Economic Forum, they are doing this thing for Africans. They are giving Africans only five slots. So I say that no, increase it to 25 to 30 and Denghoti Foundation will pay the bill. So which we have now, I think it's a project that is costing us

about $6,000, $7,000, $6,000, $7,000, $6,000,000, every year. And we're picking up people that we don't, even know. Some of them, they are, you know, but you have to be below 40. Some of them are ministers. So they go now and join these young global leaders, you know, with a very, very good decision. And they are very happy. We have full of them. But when you look at the demographics of Nigeria and Africa, you would need a lot of young leaders. We have. I mean, Nigeria, I mean, in Africa, by 20, even 30, we'll have almost one point. We'll have almost. We'll have almost

No, 2050 will have 1.6 billion working, you know, staff. You know, these are young people. You know, in Africa, majority of our population are below 30. More than 70%. What are the reflection, when you think about that, what are your reflections? My reflection is that the future is Africa. When you now sit down, you reflect where we are today. And what needs to happen for the future to be Africa?

A heavy investment in infrastructure, in training, education first, because you have to work with an educated society of which a lot of the governments they are putting average over 15, some of them, even 20% of their budget into education. You know, because we have to upscale to make sure that, yes, we are producing the workers that we need for tomorrow. What are the most promising countries from that point, do you? The promising countries, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya,

Tanzania, Rwanda, it's small, but it's very, very promising. You have Egypt is promising. Algeria is also promising, even though they are not very open. So there are more than 10 very good countries in Africa that you can go and invest. Ghana is doing extremely well.

Kodubua, which is, you know, in West Africa. they are doing extremely very well. Even in Guinea today, you look at the mines that was just opened by Rio Tinto which cost over $20 billion. You know, so people are coming in now, they realize that yes, Africa is open for business.

And people are ready to go into these sectors. And who is helping Africa with business now? Can you just reflect a bit on China versus the US versus Europe Honestly nuclear you want me to be very open Totally yeah so it's China China really have dominated business in Africa

And how do you Because of the absence of the others Yeah How do you see that Well they are making money They are dominating the landscape And obviously you know Africans

you know, even our own governments, they don't joke with China because China, they put their balance sheet on the table. So some examples of how China has helped you. Okay, let me, some of the project, like in cement, like some of the things that we do purchase of their equipment and cool, they give you a suppliers credit backed by their insurance company, which is called Sino Shoe.

Sanosu has invested to talk about $1.2 trillion in supporting their companies to go abroad and sell their technology, sell their equipment and giving you a credit of four, five years. But if you are now going to now,

if I now go to Italy, for example, and they are asking me to write a check of a power plant of $500 million that I want to, you know, build and I have one which is also good might not be even as good as Italy okay but the Chinese are saying that no no no just give me 20% the rest I will give you five years you know financing which on are you going to take if you are in my shoes obviously you take the Chinese one because the Chinese one it means that I can do more these

ones, they will suck out my cash and I won't be able to do more. So for me to grow that big, I also need to leverage. I'm not going to over leverage, but I need to leverage the business to be able to get to where I want to be. And why we want to be

is something very, very, very big. You know, we want to do poor. We're spending $45 billion between 2006 and 2030. So if we're going to, you know, obviously I will lean more to this, but right now today, I've seen that US is also changing. This time around when I went to development, financial, finance cooperation of US, they just

got about $208 billion. They are very hungry for infrastructure. They're very hungry for the force. And they are ready to lend. So with that one, then they are ready for us to now look at them and do more business. I've had the delegation of some people from the House of Raves of, I mean, the assembly of Japan. And what I told them is that, no, Japan you'll be missing for a very long time. And today, when you are coming, make sure that you come with their own balance sheet on the table

because we have choices of buying from many other countries. but if you don't really come with that support, I have to go to a country that can give me that support for me to be able to leapfrog to the next level. Yeah, I can see that. Do you think it's possible to increase efficiency in Africa without increasing inequality?

Well, the inequality issue we have to address to be very difficult to do that without addressing the issue of inequality. quality. And that when I think various governments of Africa, they are working towards that. And I was sure I would get there. And climate? Well, the climate, you know, when you look at, we're not the biggest polluters. In those whole thing, we're less than six percent of the, of the polluting the environment. So we're doing quite a lot. You can see. But it's difficult. I mean, cement production is difficult, right?

Yeah, but we have quite a lot. In cement today, Nikola, It's not like before. If you come to our cement plant in any, even under the kiln that is moving, rotating, you can sit down there and eat. The process that we have is more stringent than that of even Europe in our own plants. We are using robotic machines. We are using the dust emission is very low. We are using alternative fall to make sure that we'll cut down all this.

And if you look at it now, What are we doing today? You know, the biggest polluters are shipping companies. So we're stopping almost maybe 500 ships from going in there to pick up crew, to go and refine to now bring back the products. Today, as we speak, almost all our trucks, maybe 90% today of our trucks are all C&G. using diesel even though we produce diesel but we are using cleaner energy for that we're looking at now not only generating power from hydro and gas we're also doing solar and wind so

because we have massive land especially in the northern part of you know you know nigeria so in every aspect of our own business which is also driven by the government is to see how do we actually because this climate change is real. But, you know, with us, we have a lot of issues to address first before we now get to that. So what we are doing now, we are doing them simultaneously, trying to provide for our needs at the same time working on the climate. Because, I mean, today, we can't just say that, hey, look, climate from today, we will not do this, we don't know. But what we are doing is that, yes, we are providing what we are. need but at the same time bringing in the climate issues into place so that we will be out of

this climate change issues. Ali, let's move on to leadership. When I talk to people about you, one word that comes up again and again is patience. What's the key to patients? The key to patients, first of all, we have to have very good people that were leading in the organization. So, and sometimes you have to be very patient for people to be able to pick up and be able to prepare themselves for that leadership. So we are preparing a lot of our people to be able to take over that leadership.

And that's where we have to have the patience or in terms of, okay, fine. Somebody will just not start running first day. So my leadership style is to make sure that, for example, when I'm hiring people, I always hire, people who are more intelligent than me. I doubt that. But how can you check whether I'm a patient guy? So now you're interviewing me. What do you ask for?

Well, you know, if I'm going to have this, you know, in the interview, that's why we just don't do interview through the Zoom or whatever. No, no, no. We have to, first of all, sit down with you and talk to you. You can also ask us questions. But what you are looking for is to have that chemistry. we have to now make sure that we align we have the same

you know thinking and you are not thinking of something totally different you are not thinking of being socialist for example or we are thinking about being capitalists so that chemistry has to come in are you more patient now than when you were younger

to tell you the truth that we be very honest with you I'm more aggressive now why why why because I've seen a lot of opportunities that I have never ever knew that they exist. Wow. Never.

I've never ever, I told people that I've never ever dreamt of my own company. I've been an ambitious person, right, from childhood. But I've never ever thought of my company being 10% of where we are today. And we still have a lot of, you know, opportunities to go. Because I look at like China. I mean, look at a country, for example, like Singapore. they don't have natural resources, they don't have land, they don't have anything.

But they've been able to create something out of nothing. So when you look at the opportunities that you didn't see before, what are they? Oh, a lot. A lot. I mean, we have the critical minerals, Africa controls about 60% of the world's critical minerals. We have young energetic population.

we have the most arable land in the world 60% of the arable land of the old is there okay we have land mass so all this one and the minerals that we have were not actually processing any one of them so the opportunities are enormous a lot of now you look at what happened now between ukraine and russia european countries are now ready to see where can they get their energy from, like LNG, for example. Nigeria, what I keep telling people, is not a country that we don't have oil. The oil that we have is not as good,

as not as much as the gas that we have. Most of Nigerian's oil, I mean gas, came out by accident as a result of looking for oil. So when we go now deep looking for gas, Nigeria can be one of the biggest supplies of LNG in the world. And that's why now we want to do a gas pipeline, which the government is promoting, and they want us to join, taking gas now all the way from Nigeria,

round up to Spain, by the coast side. So now we are already in Ghana. So Ghana, the next phase will be Kodubwa, Kodubwa, Kodubwa, Murrania, where they would inject their own gas, then Senegal II will inject their own gas. Then we jump into Europe. So going forward, Africa will be supplier of most of these critical items. What do you think is driving you now?

I mean, you're already the wealthiest guy in Africa. What is driving me is legacy, actually. It's not about being richest because, I mean, I don't have too much of needs. you know I mean that's why I mean today okay I have I'm restricted I cannot just do the giving pledge where now I pledge all my worth to this you know in my religion Islam it does not allow for that unless if the inheritors agree with you but I have given now one third of my worth to the foundation if anything happens to me now one third will automatically go to my you know you know foundation. But what is driving me the most is that we have a lot of needs in Africa. And for people

like us, for cooperation like us, we are the ones that are supposed to provide that leadership in terms of transforming the economies of Africa. If we don't, we'll not be able to get support from anywhere. We have been waiting for long for foreign investors to come and invest and actually, you know, show what are the potentials of Africa. But today, we are the ones that will end up showing people that these are the potentials. And I personally believe that by doing so, a lot of corporations will join us in funding this massive infrastructure that will make Africa, you know, to be at the next level. What do you hope your legacy will be? My legacy will be that I'm one of the ones that actually pioneered, you know, the industrialization of Africa.

That's my focus. To make sure that Africa produce what we consume. This is my main focus. And for us to keep pushing to make sure that we have one common market. I have a group which is called African Renaissance and they acquired any big guy in Africa, where 54 of us were in this group, which we meet physically once in a year in Rwanda, which is Kigali.

And we've been supported by a lot of presidents. And I think the more they understand what we are trying to do, the more that we'll achieve. You know, because nobody can transform our continent, but us, we Africans. And that is why we are trying to mobilize all the entrepreneurs. to make sure that they join us at different levels. Some will be doing big things, some will be doing medium things,

some will be doing this and then that one will attract foreign investment. Because we don't have enough to be able to provide and take the continent to the next level. How do you use your foundation to try to improve the continent? Well, the foundations work. You know, the foundation about 2014, I did an endowment of $1.25 billion. So what we are now doing mostly is actually partnership.

I think if I'm right, based on what Mr. Bill Gates told me, he said that we are one of the best partners they have had as a foundation. You know, we're being able to eradicate polio and we're working on quite a lot of things, you know, primary health care, nutrition, these are areas

that we are working with them. In some areas in education, we are doing that on our own. But as we speak right now, my head of foundation

she's in Saudi Arabia trying to work with other foundation to see how do we really attract because we have, unfortunately in Nigeria we have almost

about more than 10 million kids out of school. So we are investing heavily in terms of education. And as we grow more, we'll keep funding the foundation to be able to take care of all this, poverty, alleviation, health, empowerment of people, and also education. So these are the areas that were really focusing.

How do you relax? How do I relax? I try to sometimes take my grandkids, if they're around, take them to the beach. I love going to the beach But I love also What do you do at the beach We just go there and play That's what you do

Talking of player You're a big Arsenal fan You nearly bought the team, right? Almost, yes And tell me about it Well, you know You had to make a choice When I was really

Very, very focused on buying Arsenal Then I was also facing The challenge of making sure the refinery gets its own completion, the fertilizer, the phytochemical. And then when I look at it at that time,

I say, okay, fine, but I have needs of funds. Will I go and put, at that time, Arsenal was worth just about $2 billion. Should I put my $2 billion in Arsenal and now allow the business to suffer? Or should I now complete the business,

then I can continue to remain a very big supporter of Arsenal. So I decided that no, I'm going to continue to support them, watch their games, go there, and I am an Arsenal fan rather than now trying to take my... Do you have a scarf? You have a red and white scarf? Yeah, I have. Even, you know, the t-shirts every day that, any time that they are playing, I always wear the t-shirt. And I have one, you know, which is also signed up by the captain. So, I mean, I'm a fan. And it's better for me to remain as a fan. I'm continuing to fund my own business rather than just putting, I mean,

today they are worth billions and it's not really worth my while at all. What is your advice to young African people? My own advice to young African people is to work hard and also have the belief that the future is greater than the current situation that we are in. That Africa is a promise sin land and they should stay at home and make sure that we collectively build our continent rather than just flying out. somewhere else. It's been amazing.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You're going to be here.