The REAL Reason Africa Doesn't Invest In Itself

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]How do I take my content out of uh trouble? Because we cannot continue.

[00:00:03]Every day we import food, we import whatever that we consume. Okay. So, we decided that look, the best thing that for us to do is to look at >> Africa has been lied to. And before you assume you know which lie I mean, let me be clear. I'm not talking about the fact that raw minerals leave the continent, get processed somewhere else, and get sold back at 10 times the price. We know that. But there is more to this story.

[00:00:29]and a layer underneath that changes what Africa can actually do about that economic position. In this video, we're going to break down what this deeper lie is using Aliggo Dangote's latest interview where he made a bombshell announcement that many people missed.

[00:00:48][music] So, our starting point here today is the mindset that has shaped the global view of Africa for decades. what the world believes about Africa, what Africa has been taught to believe about itself and how that has influenced the perceptions of the continent's ability to industrialize and do value addition.

[00:01:08]>> All the trading companies, all the big corporations, they always tell people openly this refinary will never happen.

[00:01:15]You know, at the end of the day, fast forward makar, we as an African company will be able to deliver. But let me tell you what will surprise you more because I mean I must thank you for IFC taking also a risk on us because you are part of our pool of funding and tell you the truth at the time when I started this refinary m I have never ever seen crude oil in my life never yes never you I always avoid crude oil because for us in Nigeria once you say that you are in oil it's a dirty business and I wanted to do a clean business so I left the oil it is just because I've seen my country suffering I've seen that when I look at is all African countries apart from Algeria and Libya at that time when we started everybody was imported.

[00:01:57]Nobody had sufficiency in petroleum products and I said no no no this cannot continue. You know we had to establish a company where we did the EPC which is engineering procing and construction.

[00:02:07]Every single nut and bolts we bought we shipped ordering of the equipments we did. We put every single thing together to now achieve that and it now it people have seen the benefit of it. Today the refinery we have tested the uh uh uh refinery up to 661,000 barrels per day but we have been now stable for the last 2 months at 650,000 barrels per day and every single department is working. So you can see that's what we have actually done. What Aliko Dangote doesn't say here is the argument against Africa's industrial capacity has always been about protecting the foreign regions, the West's economic interest. The West has always needed Africa to stay the supplier of raw minerals and be the buyer of finished products. But now Africa has proved it can industrialize at the highest level. However, the question we need to ask is how is Africa going to actually fund the next stage of its own industrial age without going back to those same institutions and governments that have stolen from Africa for decades. Dangote's answer is in the next clip.

[00:03:14]>> This now has removed fears in us and we're saying that you know for Africa to develop some of us we must take that risk in terms of opening up Africa. How do we open up Africa? We will open Africa by demonstrating that we believe in Africa by investing our money in Africa. Because if I don't invest my own money, I can never go to any conference and convince people that Africa is a good place to come and invest.

[00:03:36]>> Years ago, I heard a story on a podcast about a man who went from being homeless to actually becoming a billionaire.

[00:03:42]Before his real financial breakthrough, he'd worked himself up to savings of about $10,000. What he needed was hundreds of thousands to fund his business idea. He found an investor who liked the idea, but the investor had one condition that he must invest his own $10,000 first. Not because the money was needed. The investor could easily have covered that amount himself. What mattered was the commitment. He wanted proof that the man truly believed in his idea and was willing to risk everything to make it work. Because when someone is willing to invest their last dollar in themselves, there is no question about how strong their conviction is on that idea. This is precisely what Dangote is describing. Foreign capital does not lead African development. It follows African conviction. But before capital follows conviction, the specific needs have to be identified. And this is where Dangote demonstrates that he knows what these needs are.

[00:04:40]>> I feel much more satisfied as a human being to now take my continent out of trouble. How do I take my continent out of trouble? Because we cannot continue.

[00:04:48]Every day we import food. to import whatever that we consume. Okay. So we decided that look the best thing that for us to do is to look at what are the needs of Africa and the need of Africa is petroleum products fertilizers. You know today max we're going to be about two and a half years we'll be the largest fertilizer company in the world.

[00:05:11]We are putting up 12 million tons of ura. We're opening up a m of potach and phosphate in congo braz. We are now going into power 20,000 megawatt. We are building the biggest deep sea port of uh 80 m draft. We are doing LNG.

[00:05:30]So why? Because we have now actually free up our assets and we can actually raise more money. Our cash flow now is very very strong. But what do we want to do with all this money? What we are trying to do is to now say okay fine.

[00:05:41]How can African countries and Africans most especially benefit from this?

[00:05:46]>> So he is the richest man in Africa. He doesn't need to do any of this. He could just sit quietly somewhere, enjoy his money, fly on his private jet, invest in foreign capital, and just stay rich and even become more rich. The fact that he is not doing that tells us he's building a legacy. And that matters to you specifically because it changes how much weight on what he's about to announce. I just want to say a quick thank you to those of you that have joined my Substack. Some of you are paying members, some of you are free members. I appreciate you all. If you're out there and you haven't yet joined, the reason why you might want to do that is to help keep this message alive. You see, some of my videos get demonetized and some of the people that talk about the subjects I talk about actually get banned altogether from YouTube. So, joining subset allows us to have a email relationship that YouTube, Google, nobody else can own, just between us.

[00:06:35]So, if anything ever does get shut down regarding this message of sovereignty for Africa, we can regroup quickly and get back to making content that helps lift up the continent of Africa. Link is in the description. Thank you. Now, consider this. Africa has 1.4 billion people. It has more natural resources than any other continent on Earth. Yet, the entire continent produces roughly 10% of what just the United States does alone. I'm talking about in GDP terms.

[00:07:00]The United States has approximately 350 million people, a quarter of Africa's population. That is the exact result of generations locked out of value addition, exporting raw minerals and importing finished goods decade after decade. When the interviewer asked Angote what he should do with all the money he generates, the answer is the very bombshell I was referring to at the beginning of this video.

[00:07:25]>> Most of our companies we own super majority.

[00:07:27]>> Mhm.

[00:07:28]>> 89%, 90%, 92%, some 100%. And we're saying that no, for us to grow up at scale, we need to make sure that we have partnership. We should also collectively get Africans to buy shares like now the refinary we're going to list. When we list we're going to ask Africans to do and we want to risk also their own capital. So when we are paying dividend all our dividends will be in dollars and you can choose either you want naira or you want dollars or you want uh South African rand whatever that you need will pay. Now that ladies and gentlemen is the mechanism and it destroys the excuse that Africans including the diaspora should keep investing everywhere except Africa. African wealth can now generate returns while also helping build the continent. For the first time, your average African will be able to invest directly in some of Africa's biggest industrial projects because of Dangote's idea of an IPO, operating in the most important and profitable sectors of the economy. And this is not just any old investment. It's a system with a proven track record. You've seen his refinery.

[00:08:34]You've seen what he's done with concrete. You've seen what he's done with LNG. You've seen what he's doing with fertilizer. We all celebrated the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam because it was partly funded by ordinary Ethiopians and diaspora communities buying bonds and investing into their own national infrastructure. Today that dam is built and it is producing power that not only covers everything Ethiopia needs but exceeds so that it can also export. What Dangote is proposing is this same model but across multiple sectors at the same time and continentwide. The question now is what this return will actually look like.

[00:09:11]>> So when you look at it, if we are now saying that at the end of the day, worst case scenario, we're going to give div of 20 billion dollars. Can you imagine if we have let's say we will sell 25%.

[00:09:23]If you sell that 25% of this 20 25 billion, you are actually going to inject billions of dollars into the hands of all these Africans. Do you know what that can do? It's a life-changing event. The richest people in the world do not build wealth just from salaries and their business alone. They use ownership, investment, and capital to multiply what they already earned. That is how wealth grows across generations.

[00:09:51]Dangote is creating an opportunity for ordinary people with ordinary jobs and businesses to enter that same world they may have never had access to before. The world of investing. In Europe and America, many workers grow up understanding systems like pensions, 401ks, and the stock market. Those systems exist in Africa, too, but they're not used as widely or as effectively by every worker that owns a business. What Dangote is announcing could change that. It introduces more Africans to investing and encourages people to make their money work for them instead of working for their money. And when African money stays in Africa, it does more than just grow individuals wealth. It builds African companies, creates African jobs, funds African industry, and it gives Africans ownership in the future of their own continent. The biggest lie was never just that Africa could not industrialize. The biggest lie was that Africa was not worth investing in at all. That belief drained Africa's savings out of the continent for generations. Wealthy Africans are known for going to invest in Europe, America, Asia. But now for the first time on this scale, Dangote is offering a system designed to reverse that. And once African investors begin making serious returns from the African industry, foreign capital will flow. That is how global finance works. Money moves towards profit. If investors around the world see African infrastructure, manufacturing and industry are generating strong returns, more foreign money will move and flow into the continent as well. That means even more capital helping build African businesses, African jobs and African industry. But there is one condition that matters. Ownership must remain ultimately in the hands of Africans.

[00:11:36]Foreign investment should help grow the continent but not control it. Many African countries already understand this. When you want to buy land or property, foreigners can often invest, but not through permanent ownership.

[00:11:47]Through long-term leases, yes, but eventually that asset will return back to the country of origin. The same mindset needs to apply here. Africa should welcome foreign capital, but the engines of profit and development must ultimately stay under African control.

[00:12:03]>> Today, my refinery cannot operate and produce good quality petroleum products without good treated water. In the refinery alone, we have 440 million liters of treated water storage. We use a lot of water even though we recycle it. So in the same vein when you look at all the other businesses that are doing rice processing, rice mills, there must be water. If the quality of that water is not there, no production. The same thing with fertilizer, water, fertilizer, port infrastructure, these are not side opportunities, ladies and gentlemen.

[00:12:39]These are the foundations that every economy that ever escaped raw mineral dependency first built. The United States, Germany, South Korea, Japan, China, all of them invested in these sectors before they were wealthy. I love the African music industry and fashion industry just like everyone else.

[00:12:56]Entertainment is an expression of African culture, but they are not what shifts the continent's economic standing necessarily. You can participate in this. The structure to move into continent building assets is now there.

[00:13:09]The opportunity is being designed for the whole continent. None of it reaches its full potential unless African countries remove the barriers between them and move as a single economic block rather than 54 separate markets, each too small to matter alone. But that's another video for another day. The lie we're dealing with here today is that Africa does not invest in itself because there is nothing here worth the risk.

[00:13:31]But this is not true anymore. Africa has a lot of problems often where politics and business intersect. So if you're interested in knowing more about some project where this exact industrial growth can happen with the blessing of African leaders, then I suggest you watch the video you're seeing on the screen right now. I'll catch you over there next. Peace. [music] [music]