Africa's Richest Man Fights The Government To Build A $60 Billion Empire

**Rashad Bilal** (0:00)
Let's talk about Aliko Dangohti, personal titan. He's a personal hero of mine when it comes to business. The richest black person in the world. If you don't know who Aliko Dangohti is, he probably around $20, $30 billion out of Nigeria.
And man, he changed the game so much with his refinery, oil refinery, and he's been fighting against the Nigerian government for some time now. They've been trying to give him a hard time. Go figure. But he's taking his company public, and I believe he was on the Nigerian stock market, but now he's taking it to the London stock market. So this is major, this is big for Africa. This is big for energy independence. This is big for Nigeria.
What do you think about Aliko Dangohti's IPO on the London stock market?

**Troy Millings** (0:48)
I think Aliko Dangohti is a name that should be celebrated, should be bolstered across all social media. I think it's somebody that our children should know, we should know, because what he's doing is something that we've never seen before.
For one man to use his business brilliance and his infrastructure to change the GDP of an entire country, I mean, it's unprecedented. Not looking for outside people to help, we just said, we're gonna do it ourselves. And you're talking about oil as a resource is something that Nigeria has, and the fact that they had to export it out to get it refined and then pay a fee to have it imported back to them. It just never made sense to him. And when you say it out loud, it doesn't make sense in general. And so to be able to create a refinery in Nigeria based off his resources, right? You're talking about a guy who's done it in flour, he's done it in sugar, he's done it in cement, he has powerful friends in electricity, like all the things you need, he turned to his community of friends in the world of business, and now has made this a publicly traded company for Nigerians, and now going to the London Stock Market, so people can actually have access and ownership into it. It says a lot.
His net worth, quote unquote, was at 30 billion. The number is closer to 60 million, as most people are saying, because of what this means. So they go from like the number nine or ten exporter of oil to now one of the, importer of oil to now one of the top ten exporters of oil because of this refinery. It's a huge mission. He's been on it for, I feel like we did this in our first year. We were just talking about it in 2019
So we're seven, almost eight years into this, and the refinery is up, man. I can't wait to see it. I actually want to see it in person. I can't wait to speak to him, meet him in person, to shake his hand. He's one of the first people that I wrote about when I was teaching financial literacy 15, almost years ago.
It's incredible. I think people don't even understand the magnitude of it. And so I'm glad that we get to highlight it and give him all the praise that he deserves and all his entire team. I know his daughters are involved in it as well. He deserves it because that is something that, I don't know if it could be replicated, but the lessons that can be learned from piling your resources together, creating something, making a change that's beyond you. He said, this isn't even about money. This isn't about him. This is about the future of his country, which is extremely honorable.

**Rashad Bilal** (3:25)
Aleggo Dengoti is actually Davido's godfather also. If you don't know, the singer, we interviewed Davido and Lagos, and Davido's father is a billionaire, and Davido's uncle is Aleggo Dengoti, his godfather.
And Aleggo Dengoti's brother, he's up there too. But I got to be careful with this political stuff because we do have to go back to Nigeria soon. So I don't want to offend any more politicians for sure. We don't need that. No. We definitely don't need to offend international politicians. Absolutely not. But he's been having a fight with the government. Aleggo Dengoti, they've been- It's been a battle.
They've been at odds.

**Troy Millings** (4:10)
You could imagine people not wanting to see that happen from external forces. But he's managed to still get it done.

**Rashad Bilal** (4:20)
Okay. Well, shout out to Aleggo Dengoti. Much success. We look forward.
We've been working on trying to meet Aleggo Dengoti for a very long time.

**Troy Millings** (4:30)
Yeah.

**Rashad Bilal** (4:32)