The recent commissioning of a multi-million dollar cement plant in Zambia by President of the Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, is in fulfilment of Africa’s richest man’s quest to make the product cheaper to Africans to improve their lives, writes Correspondent, SAM NWOKORO.
WHEN the English scientist, Michael Faraday, invented the electric filament called the bulb, he was not just doing something to bring a spark of light to his dark apartment in downtown England at a time winter was biting and the country was suffering from inadequate supply of coal and gas. He was thinking of how to change the face of subsistence in Britain by triggering modern ways of lighting and heating the homes, improve productivity, so that people can work at night conveniently.
Faraday’s experiments in electromagnetic conductors later proved to be the catalyst for Britain’s golden age of industrialisation. The eccentric benefit of Faraday’s experiment was that British rate of coal and gas usage was reduced and consequently Britain still remained an oil and gas producer in addition to abundant supply of coal.
This put Britain in the world map as the mother of the industrial age. No doubt, industrial expansion is directed by technology.
Dangote as Africa’s Faraday
In Nigeria, it is not exaggeration to liken Aliko Dangote to Faraday in ingenuity and sheer drive in changing the face of Nigeria and Africa’s march to industrialisation. In generic terms, Dangote measures with other global leaders and pathfinders in the field of entrepreneurship. In this field, he can conveniently be located within the pantheons of global private business risk-takers and conquerors – those whose foresight, courage, passion, inventiveness, patriotism and adventurism has helped widen the frontiers of the libertarian age, when there is freedom for everyone to pursue happiness and comfort without the ossifying regimentation of state controls. Surely, whenever the history of market economy and African capitalism is written, Dangote’s forages in industrialisation in the continent and in far flung places of the globe would dominate the early chapters.
In the field of entrepreneurship, Dangote counts in the promotion of African capitalism and wealth creation in the continent. He can easily be compared with the likes of world business pace-setters of our time whose contribution in widening the space for people’s talent to thrive can hardly be replicated.
Dangote has, through his numerous portfolios, proved that the Blackman is as good as his Western counterpart in nurturing and managing multi-billion dollar conglomerates, and this is a subject for the Guinness Book of Records, considering the appalling infrastructure deficit in Nigeria to incentivise such huge and tough portfolios in the Dangote Group.
According to a citation about this business mogul, during one of his numerous awards, “Dangote can be likened to such leadership brands as United States’ number one entrepreneur, Warren Buffet; Donald Trump of America and Dan Rather. These are visionary entrepreneurs who opened (new) vistas for others to key in, subdued challenging circumstances, created new paradigms in entrepreneurship and mentoring and contributed immeasurably in the economic development of their communities, their nations and humanity in general.”
Satisfying the Nigerian consumer
Dangote’s companies and services have become synonymous with popularity in the Nigerian market place, a function of the groups mastery of Nigeria’s consumer behaviour. The group’s range of products and services seemed tailored to the Nigerian taste – old and young. From the pasta to the flour powder, from noodles to semolina brand.
Dangote Group’s successes confirm the benefits of a free market and liberalisation of opportunities. There was a time Nigeria was importing noodles, pasta and flour. Dangote’s coming on the scene has since curtailed the importation of foreign noodles, thereby saving Nigeria scarce foreign exchange. The group’s pricing has been adjudged the most ingenious, reasons it has never failed to record profits in sales of its range of products and services.
The cement revolution
It is to the credit of Dangote that Nigerians have cement at virtually every nook and cranny of the country to buy, despite that it sells for about N2,000 per 50-kilogramme bag. Before 2012, the very essential product was selling above N3,000. As a patriotic entrepreneur who feels the pulse of his community, the man braved the paucity of energy supply in the economy and went on to build, acquire and even invest in offshore cement plants to attempt to make the product affordable.
Today, that forage has paid off. The beauty of it is also that in the past five years, the Dangote Group has been establishing regional offices and warehouses in virtually all the states of the federation, in an effort to ensure access to the product as near as possible, thereby reducing transport cost and overhead which is usually transferred to the end user.
The new range composite quality of cement approved by the International Standard Organisation (ISO) was vigorously pursued by Dangote, who first set the example in compliance. Since then, other cement manufacturers and importers have followed suit, and building collapse as a result of poor cement/sand mix is becoming a thing of the past. In fact, wherever there is report of building collapse these days, investigations confirm that it could only have been due to other factors, and not cement quality.
Dangote Cement recently added a cap to it its enviable record with the recent commissioning of it latest plant in Zambia. This brand of cement is also popular in Republic of Benin, Cameroon, Ghana, South Africa and, of course, Nigeria through investment in the world renowned Sephaku Cement Plant in South Africa where the group’s $64 million shareholding represents the largest offshore investment in the plant. The Gambia also has a sizeable Dangote cement plant, which has raved up the construction activities in the once centralised economy of The Gambia.
Reports say the man plans to invest an estimated $16 billion in the cement sector in the next three years, having pumped in about $400 million locally and off-shore in that sector, complemented with independent power plants, to light up those plants and neighbouring communities.
Altogether, it is not for fun that the man has been recognised as the Most Valuable Investor in Africa, not just for his financial worth but for the immense needs of those businesses in which he is involved in the economic development of the countries hosting those investments. Dangote cement alone commands a hefty $14 billion capitalisation at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) floor.
A truly global conglomerate
It seems that by every calculation, Dangote Group qualifies for a truly world class conglomerate. No entrepreneur in Africa has taken such bold and courageous steps in creating jobs, products, services and touching lives. Even its corporate portal boasts a special ‘Vacancy’ section for regular recruitment of labour, thereby solving unemployment problems plaguing the economy.
A quick glance at Dangotes business portfolio says it all: Alco International Ltd, a top-notch blue-chip construction and allied service provider; Dangote Nigeria Limited, the flagship group mast-head; Dangote Transport Limited, an integrated haulage firm; Dangote Cement Plc, a multifaceted local and international producer of diverse brands of cement for civil and engineering works; National Salt Company Plc, a household name in quality edible and industrial salt producer that has since curtailed the size of Nigeria’s importation of the commodity; the Dangote Flour Mills that has improved the diet menu of Nigerians and Africans at affordable cost; and Dangote Sugar that comes in granules and cubes.
Other niche industries in the flagship include: Dangote Oil and Gas Industries, which recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for the construction of multi-billion dollar interstate gas pipeline to make the product available for growing private businesses; Dangote Textile Limited, which is steadily bridging the supply gap in local fabrics; Dangote Holdings Limited; Blue Star Limited; Dansa Foods processing which is genuinely promoting value chain in the processing of agricultural produce; Dancom Technologies; Greenview International company, which takes care of investments in Ghana cement plants; Sephaku Cement (South African cement plant investment); Alheri Engineering, a fabrication and installation outfit that will handsomely benefit the expanding oil and gas sector; and Kura Holdings among others. Thus there is little doubt that Dangote is almost like a parallel business government providing those needs so dear to the populace without all the braggadocio of state instruments of force and coercion.
A scandal-free life
It is perhaps something of value that despite the size of the man’s engagement in the world, he has not gotten enmeshed in any unsavoury scandal as occasionally is the lot of business moguls. He has perhaps a strategy known only by himself by which he manages to keep his mammoth workforce and millions of stakeholders in the circuit. Here, it is like loyalty to management, stakeholders and regulators is worshipped like a god.
Not even in these times of insecurity do you hear that Dangote is pro this or anti that. He remains focused like the German entrepreneur who knows how to dodge controversies likely to bring his interest into conflict with establishments and regulators. As one citizen recently said: “Is there not something extraordinary about this man that every government in Nigeria identifies with him. People who don’t understand the dynamics of business and politics think he is being favoured more than others. But it is not so. It is that the governments found value in him. He is serious and solves unemployment problem which is one issue every government worries about in a liberalised economy. It is not favour because governments exist to encourage what is worthy. Or do you want the state to hobnob with 419ners and terrorists?”
Of course, Aliko has justified why governments found it expedient sometimes to issue waivers or intervene in some sectors of the economy, for if every other investor or entrepreneur in Nigeria thinks and does things, concentrating on one’s core competencies rather than every Tom, Dick and Harry dabbling into noisy politics, the much desired economic growth of the country would occur faster than imagined.
Philosopher mogul
Aliko Dangote, Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger (GCON), has been a veritable advertisement of Nigeria’s embrace of free market in this century. He has also been a good role model fit for the present liberal age. It seems the horizon still bodes well for him, as African capitalism is spreading quietly and progressively with tangible derivatives. Nowadays, folks get enticed by Dangote’s record as the first entrepreneur in the country to start paying quarterly dividend to shareholders and declaring quarterly returns. Other companies have since followed that pattern.
Dangote’s simplicity of thought masks his worth. Asked why he works so tirelessly, he responds: “When you have more than 33,000 people whose career, progress and future development hang on your neck, by way of fulfilling your own obligation as an employer, of course you cannot afford to relax.”
Such statement, to most observers, says much about the humane philosophy of this Muslim icon whose intellect has never been diluted with religious leanings. Even his abode speaks so much about his simple nature.
Good works
Dangote is also sensitive to his environment. His firms have been active in public-spirited works. In fact, the Dangote Group comes only close to multinational business organisations and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) in good works that touch the lives of communities all over the country and even the continent.
For instance, the Dangote Group doled out a handsome $1 million higher than even some western nations when earthquake hit the poor Asian country of Nepal. When the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) hit Nigeria, the group also made a handsome donation of N906 million in prosecuting the war. It gave $408 million to fading Ethiopia, more than even the United Nations (UN) and other global development donors.
Yet his firms are not among the class you could label as ‘environment polluters’. Perhaps this derives from the mogul’s childhood experiences. Only those who attained success through privation understand and appreciate the essence of human life. For Dangote, indeed the entire world is his constituency.