Aliko Dangote, founder of the Dangote Group, is ranked No. 86 on the Forbes 2026 World’s Billionaires list with a net worth of $28.5 billion. He is the richest person in Africa and the richest Black person in the world, according to Wikipedia.
Aliko Mohammed Dangote was born on April 10, 1957, in Kano, in northern Nigeria, into a prominent Hausa family. His mother, Mariya (née Dantata), was a businesswoman and philanthropist, and his father, Mohammed Dangote, owned a transport company. His maternal great-grandfather, Alhassan Abdullahi Dantata, was the richest person in West Africa until his death in 1955.
Net Worth and Rank
- Forbes 2026 list: No. 86, with $28.5 billion
- Later estimate: Wikipedia says that in August 2026 Forbes and Bloomberg estimated over $51.7 billion, making him the 35th wealthiest individual in the world
Education
After secondary school he left Nigeria for Egypt and studied business studies and administration at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, then returned to Lagos to start in business.
Building the Dangote Group
- 1977: he founded the Dangote Group as a small commodities trading firm, importing sugar, salt and food products
- 1981: he founded Dangote Nigeria Limited and Blue Star Services, which imported rice and bulk materials such as steel and aluminium, and expanded into a conglomerate that also traded textiles, flour, oil and gas, and real estate
- 1998: after spending time in Atlanta, Georgia, he returned to Nigeria to start his cement business, which came to compete with the French company Lafarge’s imports
- Today: Dangote Cement had about $3.7 billion in revenue as of 2023, and his sugar refinery in Lagos was reported to be among the world’s largest
Public Life
He became Nigeria’s first billionaire in 2007. In 2011 he was named to the economic management team of President Goodluck Jonathan and received the award of Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger. Time listed him among its 100 most influential people in 2014. He donated ₦150 million to help fight the Ebola outbreak in 2014 and ₦200 million in 2020 to support the fight against COVID-19.
Why It Matters
Dangote’s companies supply cement, sugar and other basic goods across Africa, and he is the most prominent business figure on the continent.
Net worth figures change daily with share prices. Rankings here follow the Forbes 2026 World’s Billionaires list, with wealth measured on March 1, 2026.
Image: A distillation column at the Dangote refinery complex near Lagos (file photo, 2022; Aliko Dangote is not pictured). Photo: FrankvEck / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
