News Summary

• Aliko Dangote was born on April 10, 1957, in Kano into a wealthy trading family.
• In 1977, with a loan from an uncle, he began trading cement, rice, sugar and other commodities in Lagos.
• From the late 1990s he shifted decisively into manufacturing, building cement plants.
• He has been ranked Africa’s richest person for many years and is a major philanthropist.
• Tony Elumelu began his professional journey during his National Youth Service Corps year at Union Bank of Nigeria in 1985.
• He later worked as a salesman before joining Allstates Trust Bank.
• In 2005, he engineered the landmark merger of Standard Trust Bank with United Bank for Africa at the time the largest banking merger in sub-Saharan Africa.