Forbes rates Aliko Dangote as the 66th most powerful person on earth in its latest ranking

AFRICA'S richest man and business entrepreneur Alhaji Aliko Dangote has been ranked among the 75 most powerful people on the planet by Forbes Magazine even ahead of the US vice president Mike Pence.

According to the Forbes' 2018 ranking of the World Powerful People, Alhaji Dangote ranked among world leaders like Chinese president, Xi Jinping, Russia's Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, as one of those with great influence on the planet. These three presidents were ranked first, second and third, respectively, with business leaders like Dangote also making the list of top 75 influential people.

Alhaji Dangote, 61, was ranked the 66th most powerful person in the world ahead of Mr Pence, who ranked 67 and Qamar Javed Bajwa, the highly influential Pakistani chief of army staff, who was ranked 68. Alhaji Dangote is the only Nigerian on the list and the second African on it, with the other being the Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who was ranked 45th.

According to the list, the top 10 most powerful people in the world are the German Chancellor Angela Markel, who was ranked fourth; the founder of Amazon.com, Jeff Bezos (5th); the Catholic pontiff, Pope Francis, (6th); Bill Gates (7th); Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud (8th); Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi (9th) and the chief executive of Google, Larry Page (10th). In 2016, Alhaji Dangote was the only black man who made the list, apart from the then US president Barack Obama.

Alhaji Dangote is the chairman of Dangote Cement, which produces 44m tonnes of cement annually and he still plans to expand and increase output by 33% by 2020. According to the Forbe’s rich list, as of March this year, Alhaji Dangote had an estimated net worth of $14.1bn and is ranked among the 100 richest people in the world.

In 2014, Alhaji Dangote was ranked the 23rd richest in the world and in 2013 surpassed the Saudi-Ethiopian billionaire Mohammed Hussein Al Amoudi, by over $2.6bn, to become the world richest person of African descent. A keen Arsenal fan, Alhaji Dangote has long wanted to buy the club.