SHOCKING Facts You Didn't Know About Africa's Richest Man, Aliko Dangote - See How He Survived Plane Crash 3 times 🤯🤯 (PHOTOS)

TIMELINEJuly 31, 2020Read original

The name Aliko Dangote easily rings a bell in the ears of many Nigerians, after all, who wouldn’t know the name of the wealthiest man in Africa. An astute businessman, Aliko Dangote serves as the role model for many Nigerians. Asides being rich there are facts you might not know about this business mogul, so below are never-seen-before facts you may not know about Aliko Dangote.

Many Nigerian youths have the get-rich-quick syndrome and want to become rich overnight. Aliko Dangote has however revealed in several interviews that it took him thirty years to amass his billions. As a child while in primary school, he would buy boxes of sweet to resell at a profit to his mates in the primary school. He later started the Dangote group at the age of 21 after studying business at the University of Cairo.

The Dangote group might be a multinational industrial conglomerate and unarguably one of the biggest in Africa today but one of the things most people don’t know is that Aliko Dangote the business with a loan of five hundred thousand naira (N500,000). As a twenty-one-year-old fresh graduate, he didn’t have funds to start up a business so hed took a loan from his Uncle Sanusi Abdulkadir Dantata. It was these funds he used to launch his business into what we know today as Dangote Group which has over twenty-one thousand employees.

If you think Aliko Dangote is just a business mogul, think again. Not to be left out in the happenings and ongoing of the social media, Aliko Dangote joined Twitter on New Year’s Eve in 2013 and has since then gained over fifty thousand followers. His tweets usually address malnutrition, the Davos economic conference and entrepreneurship.

Aliko Dangote has survived three plane crashes in his lifetime. He was involved in a crash in London in 1983 which left the pilot dead and the co-pilot paralysed. Asides this crash, in 1996, he was involved in a plane crash that killed his brother. Like a cat with nine lives, he cheated death a third time when he was involved in yet another plane crash occurrence in 2008 when he was aboard a one-way flight to Angola.

Despite his busy schedule, Dangote manages to squeeze in frequent jogging sessions. “Exercise is better than any medicine I can take. Exercise and sleep,” Dangote said.

Former U.S. Consul General to Nigeria, Brian Browne is of the opinion that Aliko Dangote has received special treatment from Nigeria’s government in the form of exclusive import rights while high taxes or bans are imposed on competitors’ imports. Dangote denies any special treatment, saying he simply maintains friendships with elected officials. Also recently, a row has been brewing between Zambia Government and Dangote Cement, a major employer in Africa’s second-largest copper producer, after the minister accused the Nigerian company of attempting to bribe him.

Aliko Dangote is not just Africa’s wealthiest man, he also has a kind heart and has been a part of noteworthy causes to help those in need. He has a foundation called the Dangote Foundation which has distributed over $100 USD to charitable causes in Nigeria and Africa. The foundation which was set up over twenty years ago focuses on causes like health, helping the African youths as well as education. The foundation is also in partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation to help eliminate polio in Nigeria.

Like other men on earth, he has also had his own share of the romantic sagas and heartbreaks. He has been married to four women, divorced three of them and has fifteen children. His first wife, to whom he got married on May 27, 1977,he was 20 years old at that time was “specially chosen for him by a consensus of his mother and other uncles.”