Founder and President of Dangote Industries Limited, Aliko Dangote, has pledged to build a N550 million hostel for students of the Federal University of Technology, Owerri (FUTO), Imo State, in a move aimed at easing accommodation challenges on campus.
Dangote also announced a N25 million donation to the Students’ Union Government of the institution during his visit at the weekend.
The billionaire industrialist was at the university to deliver a public lecture themed “Enterprise, Leadership and Service to Humanity,” where he also shared insights from his business journey and economic philosophy.
He explained that the planned hostel project was part of efforts to support education and improve student welfare, noting that the facility would help address the persistent shortage of accommodation in the institution.
Speaking to the students, Dangote recounted his early beginnings in business, saying he started as a distributor of bagged cement and other commodities before transitioning into large-scale manufacturing.
According to him, the shift from trading to production was driven by his belief in backward integration and local value creation.
“Importing finished products into Nigeria is equivalent to importing poverty, inflation and unemployment, while exporting raw materials creates jobs, prosperity and development in the exporting countries,” he said.
He argued that sustainable development depends on building local industries and encouraging citizens to invest in their own economies, stressing that industrialisation cannot thrive on import dependency.
Dangote further noted that he deliberately embraced manufacturing to create jobs and add value to raw materials that were previously exported in their unprocessed form.
He added that no meaningful foreign investment would flow into Africa unless local investors took the lead in building viable industries.
Citing examples from Asia, he said: “Asian economies were powered by Asians, not foreign investment.
”They are the ones who invested in their countries. They did not wait for foreigners to come and develop their economies.”
Addressing the students, Dangote described Nigerian youths as highly talented and capable of competing globally, urging them to harness their creativity and resilience.
He revealed that several engineering graduates trained at Dangote Refinery and Fertiliser plants had been recruited by companies in the Gulf region, where they were treated as expatriates.
Dangote said Nigeria’s young population, natural resources, and entrepreneurial drive present huge opportunities despite current economic and social challenges.
“In my own journey through business and industry, entrepreneurship has shown itself to be one of the most powerful tools for transforming challenges into opportunities,” he said.
He added that with access to skills, mentorship, and capital, young people could build enterprises that diversify the economy beyond oil and drive sustainable development.
Dangote also urged students to be innovative, adaptable, and committed to continuous learning, noting that value creation was key to societal progress.
Drawing a final example from China, he pointed out that the country’s dominance in manufacturing and industrialisation was driven by its large pool of engineers and sustained investment in technical education.
