Nigeria's media men and editors had a piece of Billionaire business mogul, Aliko Dangote last weekend. And when they were done, many appreciated why he is one of the richest in the world.
In an interactive session with senior editors over the weekend, Africa's richest man, Aliko Dangote warns on the biggest mistake a businessman can make. The business billionaire mogul also discussed the state of the nation while explaining some details in his businesses that are geared towards a better life for Nigerians.
His tremendous knowledge in many areas awed the audience, but what moved them most was his patriotism. He called on Nigerians to invest at home and create jobs. His is about how to make Nigeria a better place. And, again, his humility thawed many especially those meeting him for the first time.
Below are just a few of the things he said on the night:
On oil subsidy:
The issue with subsidy is that government needs to block all loopholes. If there’s no subsidy, it will affect our foreign exchange, we’ll end up buying a dollar at N500, because there’s no VAT on petroleum products. That’s why the import of petroleum products is taking about 30% of our foreign reserve. We just need to make sure that there’s no siphoning of money. The refining business requires volume. If you don’t have a massive volume, there’s no way you’ll make money.
Most of the refineries in Africa are running at a big loss. It’s not possible for government officials to successfully manage oil businesses. It’s good enough if they remove the subsidy, but you can check with neighbouring countries like Senegal. If a poor person in Senegal can afford to pay subsidy, why can’t a poor person in Nigeria afford to pay. I think there must be something for the masses, which should be in terms of power, social insurance, good education system, good roads etc.
On power
The most dangerous thing that could happen to an entrepreneur is for him to go into a business he doesn’t understand. You need to know the A to Z of the business you are doing. That’s the only way you can succeed. That’s the biggest mistake most people are making. I don’t think that most of the people that have invested in power really understand what it is. It involves three things; generation, transmission and distribution and all the three require heavy investment. There are a lot of issues that we have to resolve and I think with seriousness, we’ll be able to do them.
We have gas, but we shouldn’t use gas alone. We took the decision that by the end of the year, all our cement plants will be using coal. The coal is there and Nigeria will not be competitive in exporting it because we don’t have the infrastructure to take these coal for export. We’ve started using coal and there’s no emission, not a single dust anywhere.
Technology has changed, 38% of power being generated in America is by coal. In our own operations, we’ve discovered that running on coal is cheaper than gas. We need to see how we can build a lot of infrastructure because that would help to open up the economy and make us independent. The government has to sit down and find a solution to power.
We will not have any meaningful development till we are able to sort out the power issue. We won’t have an inclusive GDPA unless we tackle power. The power issue is a great one and it’s preventing everyone from progressing. In Uganda, they increased the power to 230 Megawatts and the next year, their GDP grew by additional 4%.