The richest man in Africa, Aliko Dangote, has claimed that he never inherited any money from his father.
According to Dangote, everything he owns today was built from scratch.
In an interview originally uploaded by Bloomberg on January 8, 2020, which resurfaced online on Tuesday, the billionaire industrialist reflected on his family background, revealing that his late great-grandfather was regarded as the richest man in West Africa in the 1940s, while his grandfather was also among Nigeria’s wealthiest at the time.
“The family name is Dantata. That’s from my maternal side,” Dangote said.
He added that although his father was “fairly rich” through business and politics, he deliberately chose not to keep any of the wealth passed down to him.
“One thing that I’m very, very proud of is that I did not inherit any money from my father. I built everything from scratch to where I am.
“Whatever I inherited from him, which means in assets, I gave that on to charity since then,” he explained.
Dangote recalled how he began his career working briefly with his uncle before moving to Lagos, where he started buying and selling cement.
