David i dont consider myself a journalist. And nobody else would consider myself a journalist. I began to take on the life of being an interviewer even though i have a day job of running a private equity firm. How do you define leadership . What is it that makes somebody tick . Aliko dangote is widely known to be the wealthiest man in africa, so is that a title you are proud to have, or you get so many people calling you for money that you issue or not the wealthiest man in africa . Aliko thank you very much, david. It is great to be here. They callknow, when me the wealthiest person in africa, it comes with lots of baggage. There are so many demands, people come up with so many different demands, but it is good because i like to give back. David right now you are involved in many philanthropic endeavors in africa and elsewhere. Lets go to some of them before we go to how you made this money. You recently had an event in new y african a wealth and businessperson and bill gates in which you provided a fair amount of money for the Africa Center in harlem. Why did you do that . With the idea started chelsea clinton, another person, and my daughter. Center, to make it a reality to project africa in a better light, bringing africa to the rest of the world, especially when you look at september, when the United NationsGeneral Assembly converges in new york. We want to tell the real narrative of africa until the rest of the world what africa is about. This has to do with policy, business, and culture. Mean, sometimes americans dont understand much about africa. Well, whatll say, kind of language do you speak . In africa, we speak 2000 different languages. Aliko thats a lot. David thats a lot. Aliko thats a lot. David one of the problems his health. You have tried to eradicate polio in nigeria with bill gates and his foundation. What is the progress you have made . We have done a lot. The progress has been tremendous in the last three years. Hopefully by april, we will be a poliofree country, which means the entire african continent will be poliofree. David one of the things you are doing in the philanthropic world is building a hospital in nigeria. Why do you feel the need to build a hospital . Aliko we have to build the worlds best hospital. In nigeria, a lot of people go abroad for medical operations. What we are trying to do is give hope to the population, to say look, you dont need to travel abroad to treat it. David nigeria is the most populous country in africa, is that right . Aliko it is. David it is growing at a larger rate. Aliko 3 . David at some point more people will be in nigeria than the United States. About 4502050, million population, and we will china,t number three, india, the nigeria. Aliko by 2050 david by 2050, you could be the Third Largest country by population growth rate. Does that make you nervous nigeria can house and feed all these people . Aliko it doesnt make me nervous because we have massive arable land, water, the right climate, so when you look at contributor to our gdp is agriculture, so we just need to change from the normal oralreliant economy to agriculture and other things. Aliko nigeria david nigeria is known for having large oil deposits. Is that the major source of wealth in nigeria . Aliko it is a major source. It contributes 90 that we have. The 60 of government revenue is coming from oil. By government is doing a lot things tostructure make more money from the taxes in nigeria. It is a bit low. We have to make sure you adjust all these. Inid as the wealthiest man africa and nigeria, do you get pressure to run for Political Office yourself . Would you like to be president of nigeria . Aliko i am doing a great job where i am right now, so i dont need to be in the political space. Some of us need to lead in terms of the growth trajectory in africa through the business, not through the political leadership. David lets talk about how you made this money, which is by far the largest amount of money in anyividual has individual has in africa. He came from a wealthy or not wealthy family . Aliko i came from a wealthy family. In thetgrandfather 1940s, he was actually the richest, you know, west african. My late grandfather was one of the wealthiest nigerians. The family name is from my maternal side. , butther was fairly rich he was in business and politics. , one thing i am very proud of is that i did not inherit any money from my father. I built everything from scratch to where i am. David your father died when you were young . Aliko when i was eight years old. David he did not leave a large amount of money for you . Aliko he left in the will, but ,hatever i inherited from him ive given that to charity since then. Aliko did david did you go to college in nigeria . Aliko egypt. David what did you study . Aliko business. David you graduated at what age . Aliko 20 years old. David you went from egypt to nigeria . Aliko yes. David did you get a job . Aliko i started work with my uncle, then i went to lagos, then i started my own business. It was a very lowkey business. David you are 20 years old, 21 years old you are a trader. You are not making it to me trading it. Aliko i was trading cement at that time. David cement is your main business. Why is cement such a big part of africas wealth . Aliko when you look at cement, it is what builds infrastructure , and we need a lot of infrastructure. In nigeria alone, we have 17,000 and it is all over in africa. When we started in nigeria, we realized it was imported. Thats why we started. It is a long story. David you ultimately were trading cement. Was it hard to keep the business going . Aliko it wasnt her. I was buying domestically. 1980, because i started the business in 1978, so by 1980, we imported sugar, commodities generally, then started to cement business. The cement was local trading. It wasnt an import business. We started the import of cement into thousand. In 2000. David you had a cement trading business. Somebody wanted to buy it. You decided not to sell. You decided to build your own cement Manufacturing Business . Aliko i decided in 2003 to build my own. At that time nigeria was only producing 1. 801. 9 million tons. 1. 8 to 1. 9 million tons. And finished 2003, in 2007. David now you are the largest cement manufacturer in nigeria . Aliko the largest manufacturer in subsaharan africa. David you are building a refinery in nigeria. Why . Aliko when you look at subsaharan africa, we have only two working refineries. David so the cement business is the core of your wealth, but youre building a refinery in nigeria. Why does nigeria need another refinery . Aliko david, let me give you a little history. What we do with the at the businessesup, we use like now we are using businesses to build the future of business. We use were in sugar, the sugar profit to build the cement good with the cement the cement. With the cement, we are building the refinery, fertilizer, we areum products, then doing also petrochemicals. With the refinery come of the question is where are we building a refinery . When you look at the entire subsaharan africa, we have only two working refineries. Area with only 75,000. The other is in south africa. All themajority of subsaharan african countries, they dont have it, they import oil and products, so we realized the majority of exchange of nivea was Petroleum Product imports. David nigeria is exporting its oil, then has to import Refined Products back. You are building one of the largest refineries in the world . Aliko it is 650,000 barrels a day. David 650,000 barrels a day of refining capacity, so to do that, you have to borrow some money . Aliko what we are doing right now is we are going from the commercial banks borrowing from the commercial banks and from some financial institutions, like the, you bank e African Development bank. The african from import export bank. David many countries would like to invest in africa. Where do you recommend they invest, nigeria, south africa, kenya . You are probably partial to nigeria, but are there good Investment Opportunities for nonafricans in africa to mark aliko there in africa . Aliko there are opportunities for everybody. There are protections for everybody. It me give you an example, if am investing, i wont have which you call minimum if the company is owned by myself alone, as a nigerian or nigerian entity, we have a minimum position, so there is quite a lot in terms of inviting foreigners to invest in africa, but countries i can suggest that are good to invest, one of them, of course, nigeria. Ghana is a good place to invest. Kenyaory coast, you know, is a very good place to invest. David i first met you went i was raising my firms African Investment fund, and you invested in it. To be off bloom seems the rose and African Private Equity investing. It was attractive four or five or six years ago. Today it seems less attractive. Is that because economies in africa have gone down a bit . Isko the reason, i think, where to invest. Look at the investments made. You are seeing 90 of what if we invested, we are doing very well. So i think it is where you should invest. I cannot invest in every single sector, so i have to be choosy where i invest. You know, there is a lot of, you know, wrong perceptions. People, stories from newspapers and belief and believe what they are reading. As we go along, there are quite a lot of changes in most african countries, trying to change in terms of focus on the economy. David you live principally in lagos . Aliko yes. David how many people in lagos . Aliko 25 million in terms of population. David getting around in lagos is not easy, though getting around in new york is not easy either. You have special cars to take you around lagos . Have yeah, sometimes i police escort, but not all the time. Sometimes i drive myself. David you drive yourself . Do people stare at you and say there is the wealthiest men in africa driving himself . Do you go to a restaurant by yourself and people as q4 southeast or money . Money,they dont ask for but anytime i go to places to eat, i get a lot of requests for selfies, yes it is normal. David you have some outside interests. You are interested in what we call in the United States soccer, but other people call football. The arsenal team, is that a team you would like to buy someday . Aliko yes, i would like to buy it someday, but what i keep 20ng is today we have billion worth of projects, and that is really what i want to concentrate on. Im trying to finish building the company, then after we finish, maybe 2021, you know, we can david you are not buying a team right now . Aliko i am not buying arsenal now. Im buying arsenal when i finish. Im trying to take the company to the next level. David what are the attributes you have brought to the table that make you successful . Aliko the most important, number one, if youre going into any business, you must understand the business a to see a to z. Generally, aref, you bullish on africas prospects as a place in which people can invest, private equity firms or Industrial Companies . Bullish when it comes to africa. It is the main reason why we have 20 billion that we are investing, which we will finish by the end of next year, fourth quarter, in the next two years. Bullish onvery africa. We have done very, very well in africa. I can tell you if we continue with what we are doing today, based on our own projections and a we will be able to be within the next five years in the fortune 500. David for time to time i see investments for dangote. Is that general brand building . Why do you advertise the dangote brand in the United States was most of your businesses are not in the United States . Aliko it is brand building. We will not remain dominant only in africa. We are going to invest outside africa. What we are doing right now, david, we are investing mainly in subsaharan africa, but if you look at what we are building today, we have a company that billion. Ues of 4 in the next two years, we will have a company with a revenue of 30 billion, so without, we have quite a lot of money. What we are trying to do is use a major part of that money and invest outside africa, and maybe africa, because we have invested very heavily. David you are in your early 60s. Aliko im 62. David you continue to do this for 10 more years, 20 years, 30 years . Aliko i think i will maybe work for the next, very active in the next 10 to 15 years. David lets suppose somebody is watching this and says i want to be like mr. Dangote, a successful businessman in africa , what are the attributes you have brought to the table which make you the success so successful, intelligence, hard work, persistence . What are the most important attributes . Aliko number one, if you are going into any business, you must understand the business a to z. You should not just invest because somebody says you should put money in. You have to understand the business in and out. That is the difference with me. I know my business in and out. Ask me anytime about fertilizer, anything. The other one is to work very hard. You have to have the tenacity. You have some hiccups here and there come a but you have to be focused in terms of what you are doing. David now i have known you for a while and i never get you to yell or scream. You seem very lowkey. You dont use the technique of yelling and screaming at people . You are lowkey and even killed, so what do you attribute that to . Aliko that is my nature. I am quite and very calm. I get upset sometimes when people try to be, you know, to outsmart me. I dont like people who will not tell me the truth. I always like people to look at me and tell me the truth. Are you investing in the United States . Aliko we are going to start investing in the United States, just after this project. We want to open an office in new york and london. We already have an office in london operating for the last number of years. We want to diversify the wealth. As you know, ive discussed this with you before, sometimes in africa you have issues of doaluation, so we want to that. David sometimes wealthy people collect art, cars, other things. With your wealth you are not philanthropy, what are you doing . Aliko i am not a collector of art. When i have excess money, id like to put in more. I dont have an expensive lifestyle. David the great pleasure of your life is building your company and giving away money . Aliko yes. David well, it is a very good Success Story and i know a lot of people wanted to hear how you have done it. He said his hard work, persistence, maybe a little luck from time to time. Aliko luck has to be there. If there is no luck, its hard to make it. David thank you for coming today and giving us your insights. Aliko thank you, david. Haslinda hello. In singapore. Amin a picture paints 1000 words, then his work is limited. He is the man who shot the afghan girl, it worldfamous photographer focuses on conflict and culture. Master photographer Steve Mccurry is todays high flyer. Born in philadelphia, a child of the 1950s,