INDUSTRIALIST Aliko Dangote has been ranked among 75 most powerful persons on the planet.
He is ahead of United States (U.S.) Vice President Mike Pence.
Dangote, according to the Forbe’s latest 2018 ranking of the World Powerful people, is ranked among world leaders like Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump – all of whom were ranked first, second and third.
Dangote, who is chairman of Dangote Group, was ranked 66th most powerful person in the world ahead of Pence (ranked 67) and Qamar Javed Bajwa, the highly influential Chief of Army Staff of Pakistan, ranked 68.
The Africa’s richest man is the only Nigerian on the list and one of the only two Africans, who made the list with the other being the Egyptian President, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who was ranked 45th most powerful.
Dangote produces 44 million metric tonness of cement annually across the African continent and still plans to expand and increase its output by 33 per cent by 2020.
According to the Forbe’s rich list, Dangote as at March 2018 had an estimated net worth of $14.1 billion and ranked among the 100 richest in the world.
He is the richest in Africa, a position he has held for almost a decade.
He reached the peak in 2014, when he came 23rd richest in the world and in 2013 surpassed the Saudi-Ethiopian billionaire Mohammed Hussein Al Amoudi by over $2.6 billion to become the world richest person of African descent.
The Dangote Group President has often made such lists due to his business concerns and humanitarian efforts in Nigeria and other parts of the world, especially his efforts through the Aliko Dangote Foundation to rid Nigeria and Africa of polio, malaria and mal-nutrition.
His efforts in this regard was recognised by the United Nations, which appointed him, Malaria Ambassador.
Dangote stepped up his humanitarian activities recently spending billions of Naira to build hospitals and critical hospital equipment, the lack of which has forced Nigerians of means to seek medical attention abroad.
He also donated a N1.2 billion Business School complex to Bayero University in Kano and is presently constructing a similar one for the University of Ibadan Business School.
The business mogul has continued through the foundation by disbursing N10 billion to vulnerable women across the 774 local governments in the country.
Dangote made a donation of $2 million to the World Food Programme as part of efforts to help Pakistani nationals devastated by floods in the year 2010.
Aliko Dangote was made the chairperson of the Presidential Committee on Flood Relief, which raised in excess of N11.35 billion.
Dangote himself contributed N2.5 billion, an amount higher than the entire contribution from the 36 state governors.