By Ogbeide Ifaluyi-Isibor,
I have been a fan of Dangote for many years, I actually admire him and those who have excelled in whatever field of endeavor they had interest in and I take out time to read about them.Reading Dangote’s biography got me reading that book twice because I found it terrific .
While I do not intend to apotheosize the gentleman in the post, I however want to express some thoughts that I find interesting about the man Aliko Dangote.
A smart man Aliko Dangote has been,he has been the richest Nigerian,richest African and richest black man and all these he has achieved via a lot of hard work, smart work taking advantage of Nigeria since the 70s.He learnt well from his Maternal father who was about the richest in his days,got started after receiving some money from family and has since then used Nigeria in collaboration with the Nigerian Government.
From the late 70s till this day,the banning of cement to sugar to flour to furniture and a host of other household commodities,our friend has enjoyed unprecedented monopoly of the Nigerian market via sole import licenses from Government to Government. Aliko has sponsored majorly all Presidential elections and in the last decade, Governorship elections in Nigeria and as always, he gets fat and quick return on all investment with good interest.
The only Nigerian President who stood up against the monopoly enjoyed by Dangote was late Ex President Umaru Musa Yar’a dua who revoked the sale of refineries sold to Dangote for peanuts and eased the ease for other cement manufacturers to thrive in Nigeria.
The oil industry suffers Ebola today,refineries have been deliberately left unattended to while Dangote is building about the largest refinery in West Africa and as soon as he completes it in 2018,He will refine over 80% of Nigeria’s crude and the monopoly will continue.
Whenever government tries to get at his business, he threatens to close down his company under the blackmail of general job loss should any company of his be closed.Dangote has about 40,000-50,000 Nigerians in his employ but government favours his business at the expense of SMEs in Nigeria that employ over 100 million Nigerians.
When it comes to business, Dangote crushes everything that comes his way,he takes no prisoners and wouldn’t compromise on his profit margin. His friendship doesn’t matter so much when he finds you a rival.ask Femi Otedola.
Like he does the FG,so he does states governments now.Dangote gets for FREE any land size in choice locations in any state he wants anytime he wants it. The lagos state government will alter policies and reclaim land just to offer to Dangote under the guise of creating jobs.
Aliko Dangote single handedly financed the APC 2016 Gubernatorial campaign since his boy Godwin Obaseki was running for office, he bought the seat of government so he could buy Edo State and that’s exactly what he’s doing now. All ongoing construction works in Edo State are given to companies Dangote has interests in and of course only Dangote cement is used. 80% of the principal staff of Godwin Obaseki are all Dangote boys from Lagos, Dangote has gotten for FREE thousands of hectares of land in Mineral rich Auchi with thousands of tonnes of diverse minerals buried underground. It is the same in Lagos, Kogi, Osun, Ogun, Ebonyi, Plateau, Kano,Kaduna and the list goes on and on. He will drive the Edo economy to favour his business but the Edo people will remain poor as long as Obaseki remains.
Even the Nigerian stock exchange is not spared, my guy will love to be life President of the NSE if possible.
Dangote enjoys special waivers, duty/ excise free and tax exemptions for almost everything he imports into Nigeria he controls a large chunk of all ports Nigerian ports and has interests in everything Nigeria has interests in.
I like Dangote as a person,I can’t beef him because i cant.we are actually just as greedy as he is and we will likely do the same if we were given such opportunity. But until we allow other companies (Local and foreign)compete with him and expand business opportunities in Nigeria, we will remain a poor nation at the beck and call of a rich man; Aliko Dangote.