Aliko Dangote is leaving one-third of his $35 billion fortune ‘to humanity’—a rare move among Africa’s billionaires

Aliko Dangote wants to be remembered for being more than an industrialist.

“I want to be known not just as Africa’s richest person,” Dangote said in 2025 when he joined Time’s list of the World’s Top 100 Philanthropists, “but also as its biggest philanthropist.”

He plans to leave one-third of his fortune to charity, his daughter Halima Dangote told Bloomberg in an interview published this week. Based on the Nigerian industrialist’s estimated $35.2 billion fortune, that pledge amounts to about $11.7 billion. He’s already secured his family’s buy-in to make it stick.

“He made an announcement and he asked myself, my two sisters, and his mother to sign under that will that he is able to give that 33% to humanity,” Halima, a trustee of the Aliko Dangote Foundation, told Bloomberg. The arrangement, she noted, follows Islamic inheritance rules, which permit a portion of an estate to be set aside for charity. 

“Giving back is part and parcel of what we do,” she continued. “Our business is successful because of the giving back.” 

Dangote runs Dangote Group, a large African industrial conglomerate focusing on cement, oil........

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