On the ninth floor of the Dangote Group headquarters in Lagos, Nigeria's most successful businessman has a panoramic view of the sprawling urban mass, which makes up Nigeria's commercial capital.

His visitor, Mr Otedola has made a fortune from trading fuel and petroleum products in Nigeria, but Mr Dangote is in another league.

His business empire spans the economy. He dominates the markets for sugar, cement, rice, pasta, textiles and salt, and he is big in transport, oil and gas.

"I think I have to be rated by Forbes magazine first before I can be [called] the richest man in Africa," says Mr Dangote modestly. "But, you know, I'm comfortable."

New investments

Mr Dangote has come along way from his early days of trading commodities in his home town of Kano in the north.


We have had a generational change in business and this is now going to happen in government
Aliko Dangote, Dangote Group

He recently turned 50 and has listed two of his 13 companies on the Nigerian stock market. His stake in those two alone is worth more than $4bn (£2bn).

In politics, as in business, he is also a powerful player. He is not ashamed to be financially supporting President Olusegun Obasanjo's ruling People's Democratic Party and he is confident that its candidate Umaru Musa Yar'Adua will become Nigeria's next president.

"I am close to people in government because I am one of the big businessmen in Nigeria," he explains. "If we don't have the right people there then [all the] money I have is useless. If the country turns into another Zimbabwe, for example, then I will become a poor person."

For now, Mr Dangote is confident about the future and he lists some of the $9bn of investments in Nigeria he is currently planning, including the world's biggest sugar refinery, a 300,000 barrels a day oil refinery and a massive 5,000 megawatt power project.