By Lizzy Chirkpi
Africa’s richest businessman, Aliko Dangote, has announced plans to invest more than $10 billion in the continent’s power sector over the next three to four years, saying he may abandon some planned ventures, including steel, to redirect funds into electricity generation.
Dangote made the disclosure in an interview with Al Jazeera published on Monday, September 21, 2026, while discussing his investments in Nigeria, Africa’s development challenges and his plans for the future.
The billionaire said Africa could experience major economic transformation in the coming years if the continent addresses its energy deficit.
“I’m telling you, in the next three, four years, there will be a major transformation in Africa. And that’s why we’re looking at power, for example,” Dangote said.
According to him, his business group was considering cancelling one or two planned ventures to concentrate its resources on electricity generation.
“We are going to invest in power. We want to, actually, there is one or two businesses that we might cancel, like steel, and we will put in the money. We want to invest over $10 billion alone in power,” he said.
Dangote said the decision was driven by the scale of Africa’s electricity deficit, arguing that the continent could not achieve sustainable economic growth while hundreds of millions of people remained without reliable access to electricity.
“We shouldn’t allow over 600 million Africans to sleep in darkness,” he said.
The businessman stressed the importance of electricity to industrialisation, declaring: “We will never, ever create growth without power.”
The announcement comes after Dangote disclosed plans earlier in 2026 to develop about 20,000 megawatts of power-generation capacity as part of a broader expansion of his investments across Africa.
The proposed investment would mark another significant shift in Dangote’s business strategy, with greater emphasis on infrastructure and energy, which he considers critical to Africa’s economic transformation.
Dangote has built one of Africa’s largest industrial conglomerates from a business that began with commodity trading.
Born in Kano in 1957, Dangote started his business career in 1978, trading commodities such as rice, sugar and cement. He later expanded into manufacturing, with investments in cement, sugar, flour, salt, fertiliser and other sectors.
His major investments include Dangote Cement and the Dangote Petroleum Refinery in Lagos.
The $20 billion Dangote Refinery, one of the world’s largest single-train refineries, has a designed capacity of 650,000 barrels per day and has become a major component of Nigeria’s efforts to reduce its dependence on imported petroleum products.
Dangote has remained Africa’s richest person for years, with much of his wealth tied to his holdings in Dangote Group businesses, particularly Dangote Cement, as well as his interests in the refinery and other industrial ventures.
His latest announcement, however, indicates that the billionaire is prepared to reconsider some planned investments if doing so would enable him to channel more capital into the power sector.