Aliko Dangote of Nigeria is Africa’s richest person for the tenth time in a row, according to the 2021 Forbes’ Africa Billionaires List released on Friday January 22.
“For the tenth year in a row, Aliko Dangote of Nigeria is the continent’s richest person, worth $12.1bn, up by $2bn from last year’s list, thanks to a roughly 30 per cent rise in the share price of Dangote Cement, by far his most valuable asset,” Forbes stated in its report.
The list captured seven different countries with 18 billionaires; 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 aggregates worth of the 20 billionaires on last year’s list of Africa’s richest people.
Mike Adenuga of Globacom, and Abdulsamad Rabiu of BUA Group, both Nigerians, made it to the list as the 5th and 6th richest persons in Africa respectively.
Forbes said the biggest gainer this year is 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, the report stated.
The second richest is Nassef Sawiris of Egypt, whose largest asset is a nearly 6% stake in sportswear maker Adidas. 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, is at number three.
The report also said that while some got richer by the billions, two women from the 2020 list of Africa’s richest dropped below the $1bn marks.
“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, the report added.
See the full list below;
