Aliko Dangote was born in the northern Nigerian state of Kano on April 10, 1957 into a wealthy Hausa-Muslim family. His mother Mariya Sanusi Dantata was the granddaughter of legendary Hausa businessman Alhassan Dantata, and his father Mohammed Dangote was Dantata's business associate.
Aliko Dangote is a Nigerian self-made business magnate, with an estimated net worth of $11.2 billion USD as of March 2012. Based in Ngeria, he is the owner of the Dangote Group, which has interests in commodities with operations in his homeland and several other countries in Africa including Benin, Cameroon, Ghana, South Africa and Zambia.
Dangote had an early interest in business. He attended the Al Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt where he studied business,and later returned back to Nigeria to work with his uncle Sanusi Abdulkadir Dantata who eventually gave him a business loan of =N=500,000 (Naira)when he was just 21 years old
Today Dangote Group dominates the sugar market in Nigeria and Dangote Sugar Refinery 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 also owns salt factories and flour mills and is a major importer of rice, fish, pasta, cement and fertilizer. The company also exports cotton, cashew nuts, cocoa, sesame seed and ginger to several countries. Dangote Group also has major investments in real estate, banking, transport, textiles and oil and gas. It employs over 11,000 people and is the largest industrial conglomerate in West Africa.
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