Nigeria: Dangote Ranked Among 100 Most Powerful People in the World

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President of Dangote Group, Mr. Aliko Dangote, was at the weekend rated among the 100 most powerful people in the world by Forbes Magazine.

Dangote who was the only black person that made the list apart from president of the United States, Barack Obama, was listed at number 71 just above the top Republican party contender for the US presidency, Donald Trump, who was listed at number 72.

President of Egypt, Abdel el-Sisi, was the only other African listed apart from Dangote and he was placed at number 49, under the defiant North Korean leader Kim Jong-un who was placed at number 46, while Igor Sechin of Rosneft and Ma Huateng were placed at 47 and 48 respectively.

The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, sat conspicuously on the number one spot followed by the Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, who made the number two spot, pushing the US President, Obama, to an embarrassing third position.

The list had other powerful people like Pope Francis occupying the fourth position just under Obama, while the Chinese Prime Minister, Xi Jinping, was number five on the list.

The world's richest men, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, were placed at number six and 13 respectively, while Christine Lagarde of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) placed 23rd on the list.

Last month, Dangote was named among the 50 world most influential personalities by Bloomberg, the renowned United States-based news media with bias for business and financial news reporting.

The group of personalities chosen by the Bloomberg Market consisted of CEOs, world leaders as well as religious leaders. As expected, Barack Obama, Angela Merkel and Pope Francis made the list with Dangote at number 41 on the list.

According to Bloomberg, those on the list "build companies and assemble fortunes. They run banks, or hope to disrupt them. They shape economies and spread ideas. They manage money and wield the clout that goes with the billions of dollars they invest."

The Bloomberg said of him: "Aliko Dangote, Founder, Dangote Group, Africa's most successful businessman, built his fortune in sugar, textiles, and cement in his native Nigeria, where today, he is a political as well as a financial power broker. He is expanding in other countries and may list his cement company in London Stock Market."

A piece written by Paul Wallace, a reporter with the media outfit, said: "Dangote is fetes like royalty. He has businesses ranging from cement to sugar to energy in a dozen sub-Saharan countries. He's a fixture at elite gatherings such as the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

No African has ridden the continent's halting march out of poverty toward potential prosperity as spectacularly as its richest person, the Nigerian industrialist Aliko Dangote.

Also, another list compiled by business news network CNBC, which highlights those who, have disrupted industries, sparked change and exercised an influence far beyond their own companies, listed Dangote among 24 others.

"As CNBC embarks on its second quarter-century, it faces a world completely altered from when it started. The 25 men and women listed [here], from different parts of the world and across different industries, have, for better or worse, been the rebels, icons and leaders in the vanguard of that change," it said.

"Aliko Dangote, Africa's richest person, built his fortune in two distinct phases, riding the changes that led to Nigeria becoming the continent's largest economy," CNBC said.

"Expanding his empire from his native country to West Africa, and then across sub-Saharan Africa from Ethiopia to South Africa, Dangote showed that it was possible to create wealth in the region by means other than tapping the continent's abundant natural resources." The business news network added that Dangote's proposed building of an oil refinery is typical of his vision and will allow him to move into producing fertiliser and polypropylene as well.

"Dangote's model was straightforward from the get-go: to dominate sectors protected from new entrants, and to use scale and his trucking and distribution system to drive prices down to levels that let him crush domestic rivals. He has pursued success with single-minded focus, and has many critics," said CNBC.