All right. I do not consider myself a journalist. Nobody else would consider myself a journalist. I began to take on the life of an interview where though i have a day job of running a private equity firm. How do you define leadership . What is it that makes somebody tick . Known to be the wealthiest man in africa. Is that a title you are proud to have or one where you get people calling you for money, you wish you were not the wealthiest man in africa . Aliko first of all, thank you very much. It is great to be here. The wealthiest person in after, it comes with a lot of baggage. There are a lot of demands. People come up with different demands. It is good because i like to give back to the society. David you are involved in many philanthropic endeavors in africa and elsewhere. Lets go to some of them. Recently, you had an event in abraham, ath mo wealthy african businessperson, and bill gates, in which you provided a fair amount of money for the African Center in harlem. What is the African Center and why did you do that . Aliko we did the African Center idea, it started with Chelsea Clinton and my daughter. My daughter joined them later. Make this African Center a reality to be able to project africa in a better light. Bring africa to the rest of the world. Thecially when you look at United Nations general assembly, the entire world converges in a new york. We want to tell the world a narrative of africa and until the rest of the world what africa is about. Policy,o do with business, and culture. Especially americans, they do not understand much about africa. Say, africans, what language do you speak . In africa, we speak about 2009 which is. That is a lot. David what of the problems in africa is health. You have been involved in trying to eradicate polio in nigeria. Along with bill gates and his foundation. What is the progress you have made . Tremendousave done quite the pn in the last three years. Hopefully, when we work between now and the next six months, we will be satisfied. The entire african continent will be poliofree. David one of the things you are doing is building a hospital in nigeria. White you feel a need to build a new hospital . Aliko i think we need to build a worldclass hospital because when you look at a, we spent a lot of money where people go abroad for medical checkups, for operations. What you are trying to do is give hope to the population. We will be able to treat you there. David nigeria is the most populous country in africa. Is that right . Aliko it is. David it is growing at a large rate. Aliko about 3 . David at the current rate, at some point, more people will be in nigeria than the United States. By 2050, we will be at 450 million population. We will be number three after china and india. Be theby 2050, you could thirdbiggest country by population. Does that make you nervous about whether nigeria can house and feed all these people . Aliko it does not make me. Ervous we will have a lot of water. The right climate. Contributors of ndp gdp are agriculture. Theeed to change from oilrelated economy to agriculture. David nigeria is known for having a large oil deposits. Is that a contributor to the nigerian economy . Contributes 90 of the Foreign Exchange that we have. 60 of Government Spending is coming from the oil. If the government is doing a lot to try to satisfy the economy. Try to structure their own taxes. We need to make more money from taxes. Hard to adjust these. David as the wealthiest man in nigeria, do you get pressure to run for Political Office . Would you like to be president . Aliko i think i am doing a great job where i, right now. I do not think i need to be in a political space. Some of us need to do lead in terms of the trajectory of the broken africa through business, not through political leadership. David lets talk about how you made this money. Offar the largest amount money any individual has in africa. Wealthy family or not a wealthy family . Aliko i came from a wealthy family. Greatgrandfather in the wests was the richest african. My late grandfather was one of the wealthiest nigerians. The family name is from my maternal side. Rich, in business and also politics. Of, i didi am proud 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 he died when i was eight years old. David he did not leave a large amount of money . ,liko he left in the will whatever i inherited from him, id give that to charities since then. David did you go to college in nigeria . Aliko i went in egypt. David what did you study . Aliko business. I graduated at 20 years old. David you went back from egypt to nigeria. Did you get a job . What did you do . Aliko i work with my uncle. That i started my own business. Buying cement. It was a lowkey business. David you are a traitor. Trader. Cement is your main business. Why is a cement a big part of africas wealth . Cement,hen you look at cement is what builds infrastructure. E need a lot of infrastructure in nigeria, we have 17,000 housing. It is all over africa. When we started cement in it was, we realized imported. We went in there, it is a long story. David you were trading cement. Was it hard to get the money to keep the business going . Aliko it was not really hard. By 1980, we were importing rice, commodities. The cement, i was doing local trading. It was not an importing business. A cement trading business. It, you thought buying decided not to sell. You then decided to build your own cementmanufacturing business. 2003 to decided in build my own cement. We started producing 5 million tons of cement. Started building at the end of 2003. We finished in 2007. David you are the largest cement manufacturer in nigeria. Cementthe largest manufacturer. David why does nigeria need another refinery . Only two water refineries. David the cement business is the core of your wealth and company. You are building other things. If you are building a refinery. Why does nigeria need another refinery . A littlet me give you bit of history. What we have done with the group, we use businesses to build the future of the business. It was the sugar profits we used to build the cement. Now with cement, we are building so many things. Fertilizer, petroleum. Then also chemicals. With the refinery, why are we building a refinery . Entire sidek at the of africa, we have two working refineries. One is in south africa. Countries,y of these they do not have refineries. We realized that the majority of the foreignexchange in nigeria was to petroleum for imports. David nigeria is exporting oil and has to buy Refined Oil Products back. What you are doing is building one of the largest refineries in the world. It is 650,000 barrels a day. To do that, you have to borrow money . Where did the money come from . Aliko what we are doing now, we are borrowing from the commercial banks. Frome also borrowing like the institutions african bank. Many companies outside of africa like to invest would like to invest in africa. Where do you recommend they invest . Nigeria . South africa . You are probably partial to nigeria. Are there good opportunities for nonafricans in africa . Aliko there are opportunities for everybody. I think there is protection for everybody. Let me give you an example. In nigeria, if i have my partnership with you, i will not what you call minimum taxation. If the company is owned by myself alone, as a nigerian entity, we have a minimum taxation. In invitingot foreigners to invest. In nigeria, there is a good place. Can you is also a good place to invest. David i first met you a number of years ago. Today, the bloom seems to be off the rose and african investing. It was very attractive six years ago. Today, it is less attractive. That because economies in africa have gone down . Aliko i think most of that reason has to do with lack of understanding. Made,t the investments 90 of what we invested in has done well. Myself as an african, i cannot invest in every sector. I have to be choosy where i invest. There is a lot of a wrong perception. People read stories from newspapers and believe what they are reading. Along, theree go are a lot of changes in most african countries to try and change to focus on the economy. David how many people are there in lagos . Have 25 million. It is small. David getting around is not easy. Getting around new york is not easy either. When you get around, do you have special police cars . Around, sometimes i have a police escort, but not all the time. David you drive yourself . Aliko yes i do. David do people say, there is the wealthiest men in africa driving himself . Aliko they do sometimes. David when you go to restaurants, do people come up for selfies or ask for money . Aliko they do not ask for money. Even here, when i go to places to eat, i get requests for selfies. It is normal. David you have some outside interests. What i think you are interested in the United States we call soccer, other people call football. The arsenal team, is that a team you would like to buy . Yes, i would like to buy someday. Today, we have 20 billion worth of projects. I think that is what i want to concentrate on. I am trying to finish building the company. After we finished, maybe in 2021. David you are not buying a team right now . Aliko not right now. I am buying arsenal when i finish. I am trying to take the company to the next level. David what are the attributes you think you brought to the table which make you successful . Aliko the most important one, if you are going into any business, you must understand the business. You must know that business. David in terms of africa itself, are you a list on africas prospects are you bullish on africas prospects . Bullish whenk i am it comes to africa. Invest,20 billion to which we will finish by the and of next year. In the next two years. Bullish. I have done very well in africa. We areontinue with what doing today, that on on our own bets on our own projections, we will be in the fortune 500. David sometimes i see advertisements for dan cody, your company. Your for dangote, company. Toko we are not going remain only in africa, we are going to invest outside africa. If you look at what you are building today, we have a has 4 billion. In the next two years, the company will have a revenue of 30 billion. That will create a lot of money. What we are trying to is use a major part of that money and maybe outside africa and 40 we will invest in africa. Early you are in your 60s. Aliko i am 62. David you intend to do this for 10 years . 20 years . I think i will maybe be active in the next 15 years. David suppose someone is watching this and was to be a successful businessman in africa. What are the attributes you think you have brought to the table which make you successful . Intelligence . Artwork . Persistence . What are the most important attributes . Aliko the most important one, if you are going into any business, you must understand the business. You must know that business. You should not invest because somebody will say, that is good money. You have to understand the business in and out. I know my business in and out. You can wake me anytime and asked me about fertilizer, anything we are doing. Hardther thing is to work and you have to have the tenacity to continue. You have some hiccups here or there. You have to be focused in terms of what you are doing. Youd i never seem to get to yell or scream. You seem very lowkey. You do not use the technique of yelling or screaming . To what you attribute that . Aliko that is my nature. I am very quiet. I am very calm. When upset sometimes people try to outsmart me. I do not like people who will not tell me the truth. I like people to look at me and tell me the truth. David are you investing in the United States . Aliko we are going to start investing in the United States. We want to open a Family Office in new york and london. We have an office in london, which has been operating for 30 years. We want to turn part of that into a Family Office. I have discussed this with you before. Sometimes in africa, you have issues of devaluation. Peoplesometimes wealthy collect art, collect cars, collect other things. Some of your wealth you are not using for philanthropy, argue a collector . David i am not really aliko i am not really a collector of art. When i have excess money, i put more terms of strategies. I do not have an expensive lifestyle. David the pleasure of your life is building your company and giving away extra money . Aliko that is my greatest pleasure in life. David it is a good success story. I guess you are saying it is hard work and persistence. A little luck from time to time. Aliko lucky must be there. If there is no luck, you cannot make it. David thank you for coming today. I appreciate you giving us your insights. Aliko thank you so much. Beyond the routine checkups. Beyond the notsoroutine cases. Comcast business is helping doctors provide care in whole new ways. All working with a new generation of technologies powered by our gigspeed network. Because beyond technology. There is human ingenuity. Every day, comcast business is helping businesses go beyond the expected. To do the extraordinary. Take your business beyond. Haslinda hello. I am Haslinda Amin in singapore. If a picture paints 1000 words, then Steve Mccurrys work is limitless. He is the man who shot the afghan girl, a worldfamous photographer who focuses on conflict and culture. 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