34 Quotes by Aliko Dangote

I enjoy myself a lot but I derive more joy in working. I believe in hard work and one of my business success secrets is hard work. It’s hard to see a youth that will go to bed by 2am and wake up by 5am. I don’t rest until I achieve something.

Every morning when I wake up, I make up my mind to solve as many problems, before retiring home.

Manufacture, don’t just trade. There is money in manufacturing even though it is capital intensive. To achieve a big breakthrough, I had to start manufacturing the same product I was trading on; which is commodities.

When you have made it in life, you must give back to those who made you.

I need a visa in almost 38 countries, which means an American has more access into Africa than myself.

Africa’s risks are mainly perceived and not real. Unfortunately for us in Africa we are not really very good at telling our own story. But things are changing and people are beginning to understand that things are going very, very well.

To succeed in business, you must build a brand and never destroy it. One competitive advantage I had when I ventured into manufacturing was my brand “Dangote,” which I diligently built in the course of my trading commodities.

My great-grandfather was a kola nut trader and the richest man in West Africa at the time of his death. My father was a businessman and politician. I was actually raised by my grandfather.

I used to own two homes in Atlanta. But it was a lot of trouble. There are leaky roofs; you have to call people. It takes up too much time to own property everywhere. Now I stay at the St. Regis. I used to like cars a lot, too. I had 25 of them: Porsches, Ferraris.