• Dangote targets $100B annual revenue within five years
• Growth driven by refinery, regional exports, Afreximbank support
• Calls for African industrialization to curb job and wealth outflows

Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote said on Saturday, October 25, that he expects the Dangote Group to reach $100 billion in annual revenue within the next five years. He said he would count on the renewed leadership of Afreximbank, now led by Cameroonian George Cholumbi Elombi, who succeeded Benedict Oramah. Dangote made the comments at Elombi’s inauguration ceremony at the St. Regis Hotel in New Cairo.

Dangote praised the new president’s “vision and commitment to continuity,” adding that “At the Dangote Group, our Vision 2030 strategic plan was to become a $100 billion organisation in the next five years, but I’m sure we will meet that target much sooner. Based on our existing great partnership, Dr. George Elombi’s new leadership, and Afreximbank’s unwavering commitment, we will surpass it before that time”

The target marks an acceleration in the group’s growth plans. In 2024, Dangote projected that his subsidiaries’ combined revenue would reach $30 billion within two years, driven by expected earnings from the Lagos refinery and petrochemical complex, which began partial operations earlier that year. The company’s growing industrial portfolio and regional exports now support the revised $100 billion projection.

Over the years, Afreximbank has become one of Dangote Group’s key banking partners. In 2017, the pan-African lender granted a $1 billion facility to support the group’s intra-African trade and helped finance the Dangote Refinery. In August 2025, the bank arranged a new $1.35 billion loan as part of a $4 billion syndicated facility.

Dangote stressed the need for stronger cooperation between major African businesses and pan-African financial institutions. He also urged greater industrialization and local value creation across the continent, expressing confidence in the new leader’s ability to help the continent stop exporting jobs and importing poverty.

Afreximbank, whose balance sheet expanded from $6 billion to $44 billion under Oramah’s leadership, now aims to reach $250 billion in assets over the next decade. Elombi, the bank’s former executive vice president, has pledged to continue reforms to boost intra-African trade financing and economic integration.

With expanding operations in cement, fertilizer, and refining, the Dangote Group remains one of the main potential beneficiaries of Afreximbank’s regional financing programs.

Fiacre E. Kakpo