Forte Oil chairman, Femi Otedola, has described fellow billionaire, Aliko Dangote, has “the greatest man that has come out of Africa.”
Africa’s richest man and founder of Dangote Group clocked 62 on Wednesday.
Among the many people who congratulated him is his younger friend, Otedola, who posted a message on Instagram.
Otedola listed Dangote’s achievements to include ownership of the second largest sugar refinery in the world, largest cement factory in the world, one of the largest flour mills in the world, second largest fertiliser plant in the world that is due for completion and the biggest oil refinery in the world.
“Aliko Dangote is a titan that God created specially for mankind,” the 56-year-old added.
Dangote on Saturday recounted withdrawing $10m just to look at it and prove to himself he was rich.
He told the story in an interview with Mo Ibrahim at a forum in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire.
“When you first start a business your target is to make your first million,” the Nigerian businessman said.
“But after a year or so, I realised that I had much more than $12-13bn (£9.2-10bn), and I said okay, fine, all these numbers are just written numbers.
“One day I went to a bank, at that time there were no restrictions, and I wrote a cheque and cashed $10m. And I took it home for myself. And I put it in the boot of my vehicle and I went home and I opened it and I looked at $10m and I said: ‘Okay fine, now I believe I have money.’”
“I took it back to the bank the next day,” Mr Dangote added.
Asked how much money he had in his wallet, he said: “Not even a dollar. Nothing.”
Dangote reached the rank of 23rd richest person in the world in 2014, according to Forbes magazine.
The magazine also named him as the Forbes Africa Person of the Year in the same year.
He had an estimated net worth of $10.6bn as of March 2019.
Otedola featured in the 2016 ranking of Forbes billionaires with a net worth of $1.8 billion at the time.
