The richest man in Africa and the president of the Dangote group. The businessman has denounced the high unemployment rate in Nigeria. Aliko Dangote said the number of unemployed youth in Nigeria gave him sleepless nights.
Speaking at a meeting with a team of business leaders at Lagos Business School, Dangote said that unemployment in Nigeria has become a horror and must be redressed through collective efforts.
The richest black man in the world understands that no one is truly rich until everyone around him or her are rich as well howbeit in different degrees. A rich man in the midst of a thousand poor men is in actual fact a poor man.
The meeting took place in its multi-billion-dollar refinery and petrochemical company in Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos State.
He revealed that every Nigerian has a role to play in ensuring that the unemployment problem is solved. “What keeps me from sleeping every night is not really the bunch of business ideas in my mind but the high unemployment rate in the country.” “It’s a horror and I think we have a collective responsibility to solve this problem,” he said.
The businessman said that the population of Nigeria is increasing at a rate where it should be a blessing for the nation, but the poverty rate in the country increases with the population. “The more poverty you have in an uneducated society, the more criminals you create.”
The richest man in Africa adds that Nigerians should create their own jobs so as not to always rely on the government to do so. However, he urged the federal government to focus on creating an enabling environment for all Nigerians who want to do business.
Citing cases in developed countries, Dangote said the major economies were not created by the government but by the private sector which is the main engine of growth and development. He also said that the insurgency in the Northeast and activism in the Niger Delta region has contributed to the growing unemployment rate.