I am an admirer of Alhaji Aliko Dangote, MFR, GCON (born 10 April 1957, Kano, Nigeria) who owns the Dangote Group, which has interests in commodities, operating in Nigeria and several other countries in Africa, including Benin, Cameroon, Togo, Ghana, South Africa and Zambia. As of March 2014, Dangote had an estimated net worth of $25 billion USD and is ranked by Forbes Magazine as the 23rd richest person in the world and the richest man in Africa.
And of course, he has provided secured and long term employments for thousands of Nigerians and Africans too.
My only problem with him and his companies/business enterprises are the havocs, mayhems, damages, pollutions and deaths that his articulated lorries (called trailers in Nigeria) are causing on the roads of Nigeria.
These lorries are most often involved in fatal accidents; cause gridlocks (or go-slow, as we call it); damage the roads; instigate air and substance pollution; and most often, everywhere they park, the drivers convey along with them crime – drugs, illicit gambling and prostitution (ask the people at Ogere on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway)
It is said that at any particular given day, there are over 2500 Dangote trailers on Nigerian roads, transporting sugar, oil, cement, flour and other commodities.
Now, why would a businessman of Dangote’s astuteness, education and entrepreneurship not look at moving his goods and services via a railway system, which he can help build up, revitalise and rejuvenate in cooperation with the Nigerian Railway Corporation and the Federal Government of Nigeria (of which he can demand almost anything and get)?
Eventually, it will be cheaper, safer and faster for him to move his goods and services, as well as people all over the country, without the associated hardship, inconvenience, havoc, mayhem and fatalities, and will be doing Nigeria a very great favour we will never forget, and he will go down well in the history of infrastructural development of Nigeria.
Or am I wrong in this assessment? Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) will be very good here.
I have a few ideas for him
Akintokunbo A Adejumo
MSc, Dip Mngt, CIHM, MCMI, FITP
Ajibade Yusuf wrote: Very well written. I have many other problems with him. His monopoly of all the markets he has interest in. Unhindered access to Federal Govt loans most of which are unpaid. I don't think he is really doing nigerians any favour cause he his basically using their money to employ them. Zero sum game. The truth about Dangote will emerge once Nigeria start to apply strict governance rule in our society.
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