Alhaji Aliko Dangote

By Goddy Egene

President of Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, has said all his investments would be  made  towards job creation for gainful
employment so as to alleviate poverty  in the country.

Speaking against the background of a recent global survey, which declared Nigeria as having the potential to lead the continent in terms of growth by 2020, Dangote said what Nigerians needed  most was
economic empowerment.

Dangote was quoted in a statement, to have said at the weekend in Lagos that only a working population whether self-employed or engaged could be economically empowered.

According to him, all hands must be on deck to ensure the dream of Nigeria’s economic turn-around becomes a reality.
He therefore urged local investors   to complement the efforts
of the Federal Government  in  ensuring the success of the economic agenda by delving into manufacturing as one of the means of empowering Nigerians through job creation.
The report on Africa’s growth and Job creation, by McKinsey Global Institute has described Africa as the second fastest growing region in the world with decline in poverty.

The report noted that Africa was harnessing its natural wealth, and that certain sectors across the economy were growing rapidly. These sectors  include: agriculture, manufacturing,  local services such as retail, banking, and transportation and communications and  natural   resources sector.

Also, the report believed that, Nigeria, for example, enjoyed abundant natural gas and a growing local construction industry, comparative advantages that have already brought some major private-sector success stories.

However, the report indicated that Nigerian manufacturing was said to still face a range of obstacles, including weak infrastructure and logistics bottlenecks, and removing these would allow similar success stories to emerge.

But Dangote advised Nigeria to take the advantage of
favourable analysis of state of agriculture, manufacturing, retail and hospitality sectors, which have the  potential to create up to
72 million wage-paying jobs across all sectors by 2020.

He said that capturing this potential would move Africa closer to matching the job-creation trajectory of South Korea and other successful emerging markets.