Founder and chairman of BUA Group Abdul Samad Rabiu has clocked 60.
Mr Rabiu’s company is into manufacturing of products such as sugar, flour, pasta, edible oils, rice, cement, steel among others, pitching him as a direct competitor of Africa’s richest man Aliko Dangote, 63, founder of Dangote Group.
Celebrating him on Twitter on Tuesday, BUA Group wrote: “Our Chairman, Abdul Samad Rabiu (CON) is 60! Join us in wishing our Founder & Chairman a happy 60th birthday. We wish him good health, continued successes and many more years of unlocking opportunities. Happy birthday, sir.”
In June, Dangote Group and BUA Group resumed their tussle over the ownership of the mining sites in Obu, Okpella in Edo State.
Abdulsamad was born on August 4, 1960, in Kano State where he had his early education at Federal Government College, Kano.
At the age of 24, he began to manage his family business on his return from studying Economics at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio, US. He was able to steer the business out of trouble created by the absence of his father Isyaku Rabiu who was detained by then military leader Muhammadu Buhari on allegation of duty aversion on rice imports.
In 2008, BUA broke Dangote Sugar’s eight-year monopoly in the Nigerian market by commissioning the second largest sugar refinery in sub-Saharan Africa. The company later acquired a controlling stake in a public company Cement Company of Northern Nigeria in 2009. This enabled BUA to commence construction of a $900 million cement plant in Edo State commissioned early 2015.
