Aliko Dangote, The Richest African Ups Wealth To 14 Billion Dollars

The Nigerian businessman's fortune surged 557% in the past year, making him the world's biggest gainer in percentage terms and Africa's richest individual for the first time. The catalyst was listing Dangote Cement, which integrated his investments across Africa with his previously public Benue Cement; it now accounts for a quarter of the Nigeria Stock Exchange's total market cap.

Already the continent's biggest cement maker, he has plants under construction in Zambia, Tanzania, Congo and Ethiopa and is building cement terminals in Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast and Liberia, among other places. Dangote, who recently bought himself a $45 million Bombardier aircraft for his birthday, has been shuttling back and forth to London for months, in anticipation of a public offering there later this year. Dangote began his career as a commodities trader; built his Dangote Group into conglomerate with interests in sugar, flour milling, salt processing, cement manufacturing, textiles, real estate, and oil and gas.

The latest forbes list of richest men in the world just released today shows that dangote is the richest african, black man, jumping from 200+ position last year to 51 position in the latest list, surpassing a whole lot of bunch like abramovich richard branson, oprah, just name it!  followed closely by Mark Zuckerberg of facebook.

And he is still scratching the surface, cause his massive investments are just coming up, like the cement factories he is building all over africa even in europe, believe me before he reaches 60yrs he should be in top ten.