There are some Nigerians with more money than us: Dangote rejects ‘monopoly’ accusations, explains why he won’t invest in Nigeria’s steel industry

Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man and chairman of Dangote Industries Limited, has said he will no longer pursue his plans to enter Nigeria’s steel industry.

His revelation comes two months after his company announced it would invest in the steel sector.

Addressing reporters at his Lagos refinery this weekend, Dangote said the organisation’s board had decided to shun the steel industry “to avoid accusations of being labelled as monopolists”.

“You know, to do a new business that we announced, which is steel. In fact, our board decided that we shouldn’t do steel because if we did, we would be called all sorts of names, like a monopoly,” he said.
“And then, imports will also be encouraged. So we don’t want to get into that.
“If you look at all our activities at Dangote (Group), we add value; we take local raw materials and transform them into products, and sell them.
“We have never prevented, neither knowingly nor unknowingly, anyone from doing the same activity that we are doing.
“When we started producing cement, only Lafarge was operating here in Nigeria… No one ever called Lafarge a monopoly,” he said.
“Monopoly is when you stop people, you block them through legal means. No, it’s a level playing field where whatever Dangote was given in cement, for example, was given to other people because some of them even got more than us,” he added.
Dangote encouraged Nigerians to invest in the sector to help boost the country’s economy.
“Let other Nigerians go and do it. We are not the only Nigerians here. There are some Nigerians with more money than us,” the billionaire said.
“They should bring that money from Dubai and other parts of the world and invest in our homeland.