Abdulsamad Rabiu Beats Dangote To Number One Spot On Billionaires Rich List.

*How He Worked Hard To Defeat Forbes Africa’s Richest Billionaire

For Abdulsamad Rabiu, winning isn’t everything, it is the only thing. The fiercer the enemy, the sweeter the tang of victory. Thus his indescribable joy at beating Aliko Dangote to the number one spot on the rich list of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE).

Yes, it’s official: Rabiu is richer than Dangote, according to the Nigerian Exchange. Posting an immense $6.01 billion against Dangote’s $5.8 billion, Rabiu effortlessly asserts fiscal superiority and entrepreneurial advantage over his closest rival and challenger to the number one spot.

Rabiu clearly savours the sweet taste of victory as you read. Finally, the Chairman of BUA Group has handed a stunning defeat to his nemesis and business archrival, the Chairman of Dangote Group.

His path to triumph, however, didn’t lay out in flat miles. Rabiu truly worked for his win. Having watched wistfully for years as Dangote bested him to the prized rating by Forbes, of the richest African, Rabiu finds unprecedented joy in his recent NSE rating. A win is a win, after all.

The NSE rich list shows the 25 richest people by its current rating. And Rabiu, it states, owns the most valuable portfolio on the Nigerian Exchange at the moment. Rabiu, who founded BUA Group in 1988, owns 96.29 per cent of his flagship company, BUA Cement Plc, in his name and through his wholly-owned BUA International. His stake in the company is now valued at $3.008 billion. He also owns a 92.6-per cent stake in BUA Foods Plc, currently worth $3 billion, bringing the total value of his holdings to $6.01 billion.

Dangote on the other hand, owns 86.81 per cent of Dangote Cement, Africa’s biggest cement company, and the second-largest company on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. His other holdings on the NGX include a 72.7 per cent stake in Dangote Sugar, 66.5 per cent in NASCON Allied PLC, and 7.23 per cent in Jaiz Bank. Dangote also owns 301,971,608 shares in United Bank for Africa.

Aside from their fierce rivalry, both men share a Kano kinship and a few other things in common. For instance, the BUA Group and Dangote Group are the leading players in the fast-moving consumer goods and cement sectors. They are also two of Africa’s biggest philanthropists, donating significant parts of their wealth to various humanitarian causes.

In the wake of ongoing macroeconomic reforms, including the devaluation of the Nigerian naira, Nigeria’s equity market and investment landscape continue to evolve, with a notable surge in strategic acquisitions and increased foreign investor participation.

The impact of these developments has propelled the NSE to historic heights, with the NGX all-share index surpassing 60,000 index points for the first time since 2008.

The total share market capitalization on the Nigerian Exchange has experienced a remarkable 17.28 per cent surge since the beginning of the year, reaching a historic N32.7 trillion ($43.1 billion) at the time of this report.

This surge has resulted in several Nigerian billionaires and businessmen, including renowned figures such as Aliko Dangote, Femi Otedola, Abdul Samad Rabiu, and Mike Adenuga, witnessing an impressive increase in their fortunes during the same period.

Rabiu established BUA International Limited in 1988 for the sole purpose of commodity trading. The company imported rice, edible oil, flour, and iron and steel.

In 1990, the government, which owned Delta Steel Company, contracted with BUA to supply its raw materials in exchange for finished products. This provided a much-needed windfall for the young company. BUA expanded further into steel, producing billets, importing iron ore, and constructing multiple rolling mills in Nigeria.

Years later, BUA acquired Nigerian Oil Mills Limited, the largest edible oil processing company in Nigeria. In 2005 BUA started two flour-milling plants, in Lagos and in Kano. By 2008, BUA had broken an eight-year monopoly in the Nigerian sugar industry by commissioning the second-largest sugar refinery in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2009 the company went on to acquire a controlling stake in a publicly-listed Cement Company in Northern Nigeria and began to construct a $900 million cement plant in Edo State, completing it in early 2015.

Rabiu, son of Isyaku Rabiu was born in Kano, Nigeria where he did his early education. He then proceeded to the Capital University in Columbus, Ohio, United States, to further his education. He returned to Nigeria at the age of 24 to oversee the family business at the time his father was detained by the administration of General Muhammadu Buhari on the allegation of duty aversion on rice imports.

He took charge as a young executive director at the company and he was able to successfully redeem the family business out of trouble created by the absence of their father. Rabiu, believed to have taken on his father’s entrepreneurial and leadership skills, has achieved some quite note-worthy feats.

He is also a philanthropist who commits his BUA Foundation to philanthropic activities.

Last March, the industrialist extraordinaire and BUA Group chairman, launched the Abdul Samad Rabiu Africa Initiative, which aims to unlock sustainable development opportunities in Africa, by Africans, for Africans that would cater for various interventions in education, health and social development. The initiative started with a $100 million annual funding for Africa’s social development and renewal – $50 million would be dedicated to Nigeria yearly while $50 million would go to the rest of Africa.

He said, “It is with the blessings of the Almighty, my family, colleagues, the support of my community and the backing of my conscience that I announce the launch of the Abdul Samad Rabiu Initiative, with an Africa fund endowment of $100 million every year starting from this year, 2021.

“With the Abdul Samad Rabiu Initiative and its annual $100 million Africa Fund for Social Development, we are specifically extending this work to the education, health and social development sectors, starting with infrastructure and capacity development in these areas and supporting the efforts of various governments in Nigeria and Sub-Saharan Africa. Our broad focus is equipping facilities, our researchers, healthcare practitioners and community-level service providers, with the aim of providing sustainable solutions for generations to come.”

Rabiu also announced a N1 billion grant to six higher institutions in the country namely the University of Ibadan, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria; University of Nigeria, Nsukka; the University of Maiduguri; the University of Ilorin; and the University of Benin. All the universities have got their NI billion each. The ASR and the Kwara government had jointly announced, earlier, the construction of the largest oncology and diagnostic centre in West Africa to be built with a N2.5 billion ASR Africa Tertiary Health Systems Infrastructure initial grant recently awarded to the state from the ARS’s annual $100 million Africa Fund for Social Development and Renewal.

The ASR Africa Oncology and Diagnosis Centre is a standalone facility dedicated to Oncology diagnosis, research, and treatment, to bridge the gap in cancer research, diagnosis, and treatment in West Africa. Construction is expected to commence on-site before the end of August.

Similarly, the ASR is supporting the construction of the Akwa Ibom State University Teaching Hospital with N5 billion, for which N2.5 billion was disbursed immediately to commence construction. Governor Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom said: “We are happy to receive the first tranche of N2.5 billion from the ASR Africa Initiative and the groundbreaking ceremony coming just two weeks after the N5 billion grant was announced signposts the seriousness we attach to delivering a teaching hospital that would be a model for others and one Nigeria would be proud of.”

A few days before then, the ASR awarded a $3 million education infrastructure support grant to the Ghanaian government through its Ministry of Education to eradicate ‘schools under trees’ whilst developing primary education infrastructure across the country.

Within the same period, a subsidiary of the BUA Group, the BUA Cement Company, donated a school, hospital and other infrastructures worth N230 million to two relocated communities, Gidan Bailu and Gidan Datti in Wamakko Local Government Area of Sokoto.

The donated facilities comprise a school with two blocks of classrooms, an administrative block, a township mosque, a clinic, two boreholes, a 30 KVA electricity transformer, township electrification installations and a cemetery. According to the company, the facilities are meant to complement the efforts of the state government in enhancing people’s lives and to facilitate a conducive environment for the relocated citizens to dwell in good living conditions.

Apparently, Rabiu gives out almost as much as he earns; this further attests to his unwavering generosity and compassion for the needy.