Nigeria’s billionaire, Aliko Dangote, has once again been adjudged Africa’s richest person by Forbes.
It is the 10th year consecutively that he has emerged the number one billionaire in Africa.
Mr Dangote of Nigeria, according to Forbes, is worth $12.1 billion, up by $2 billion from 2020’s list, contributing his financial success to a roughly 30% rise in the share price of Dangote Cement, by far his most valuable asset.
Africa’s second richest person, Forbes reported, is Nassef Sawiris of Egypt, whose largest asset is a nearly 6% stake in sportswear maker Adidas.
Featuring number three on the list is Nicky Oppenheimer of South Africa, who inherited a stake in diamond firm DeBeers and ran the company until 2012, when he sold his family’s 40% stake in DeBeers to mining giant AngloAmerican for $5.1 billion.
Forbes reported that biggest gainer for 2021 is another Nigerian cement tycoon, Abdulsamad Rabiu. Remarkably, shares of his BUA Cement PLC, which listed on the Nigeria Stock Exchange in January 2020, have doubled in value in the past year.
“That pushed Rabiu’s fortune up by an extraordinary 77%, to $5.5 billion. One thing to note: Rabiu and his son together own about 97% of the company, giving the company a tiny public float. The Nigerian Stock Exchange requires that either 20% or more of a company’s shares to be floated to the public, or that the floated shares are worth at least 20 billion naira — about $50 million — a paltry sum, to be sure,” according to Forbes.
According to Forbes, while some got richer by the billions, two from the 2020 list of Africa’s richest dropped below the $1 billion mark.
In fact, it said, the only two women billionaires from Africa have both fallen off the list.
“Forbes calculates that the fortune of Folorunsho Alakija of Nigeria, who owns an oil exploration company, dropped below $1 billion due to lower oil prices. And Isabel dos Santos, who since 2013 has been the richest woman in Africa, was knocked from her perch by a series of court decisions freezing her assets in both Angola and Portugal. In January 2020, the attorney general of Angola charged Dos Santos with embezzlement and money laundering. The Angolan court claimed that actions taken by Dos Santos, her husband Sindika Dokolo (who died in October 2020, reportedly in a scuba diving accident) and one other associate caused the Angolan government losses of at least $1.14 billion. Forbes has marked Dos Santos’ frozen assets at zero. Through a spokesperson, Dos Santos declined to comment,” it said.
No Ghanaian featured on the top 10 billionaires list.
Origin of Africa’s Billionaires
The 18 billionaires from Africa, according to Forbes, hail from seven different countries.
South Africa and Egypt each have five billionaires, followed by Nigeria with three and Morocco with two. Altogether they are worth $73.8 billion, slightly more than the $73.4 billion aggregate worth of the 20 billionaires on last year’s list of Africa’s richest people. See the full list of Africa’s billionaires here, it said.
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