Born To Be A Solution 2

Born To Be A Solution 2

Born To Be A Solution 2

ALIKO DANGOTE: THE AFRICAN LEGEND!
“…for this purpose I was born and for this
purpose I have come into the world…’’
–John 18:37
“Don’t find fault, find remedy.’’ –Henry
Ford
Albert Einstein once said, ‘’it is not that I
am so smart, it’s just that I stay with
problems longer.’’ Life is full of people
that made impact by solving problems:
Alexander Graham was the solution to
communication barrier, he invented the
telephone; Alexander Fleming was the
solution to the raging pang of
pneumonia, he invented penicillin; the
Wright brothers were the solution to air
travelling, they invented the airplane;
Thomas Edison was the solution to
physical darkness, he invented the light
bulb. In solving the problem of physical
darkness, it was once said; ‘’God said let
there be light and there was Thomas
Edison!’’; Nelson Mandela was the
solution to apartheid in South Africa;
Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr.
were the solution to racism in America;
Mahatma Gandhi was the key to Indian
freedom; Fela Kuti’s mother, Funmilayo
Ransome-Kuti was a solution to women’s
suffrage in Nigeria. There was a time
when women were not allowed to drive,
vote or even bail any member of their
family in Nigeria, but a woman stood
against what she knew was wrong. We
are all ‘solutions’ in God’s mind.
“Every problem has in it the seeds of its
own solution. If you don’t have any
problems, you don’t get any seeds.” –
Norman Vincent Peale
William Henry “Bill” Gates III is an
American business magnate, investor,
computer programmer, inventor and
philanthropist. Gates is the former CEO
and chairman of Microsoft, the world’s
largest personal-computer software
company, which he co-founded with Paul
Allen. He began to show interest in
computer programming at the age of 13
at Lakeside school where he met his life-
long friend and business partner, Paul
Allen and the pair bonded through their
common enthusiasm over computers. In
1970, at the age of 15, Bill Gates went
into business with Paul; they developed
“Traf-O-Data”, a computer program that
provided a solution to monitor traffic
patterns in Seattle which netted $20,000
for their efforts.
Gates enrolled at Harvard University but
spent a lot of time using the school’s
computer. In his sophomore year, Gates
devised an algorithm for pancake sorting
as a solution to one of a series of
unsolved problems. He dropped out of
Harvard after two years of being there,
talking this decision over with his
parents who supported him seeing his
passion. In 1975, Gates and Allen formed
a partnership they called micro-soft, a
blend of “micro-computers” and
“software” and started off on a shaky
footing. Gates and Allen’s Microsoft
BASIC was the key to Microsoft’s initial
success and a solution to the world’s
short-sightedness on the use of
computers. In 1978, Microsoft
headquarters moved to Washington, 23
years old Gates who was the head of the
company had only 25 employees and
Microsoft grossed $2.5million that year.
After working with IBM, Microsoft began
experiencing rapid growth as they
solved more problems. On November 10,
1983, Microsoft formally announced
Microsoft windows with a graphical user
interface and a multi-tasking
environment for IBM users. Microsoft
solved a major problem by making its
software multi-tasking; people could do
several things simultaneously which
prevented time wastage. In 1990,
Microsoft released windows 3.0 which
gained strong third-party support and
sold three-million copies in the first year
alone. Over the years, Windows has
been updated and improved greatly
solving more problems each time it is
updated.
In February 2014, Gates announced that
he would be stepping down as the
Chairman of Microsoft to move into the
new position as technology adviser. Bill
Gates indeed changed the world by
advancing software technology and
making software products user friendly.
Bill Gates, who remained the world’s
wealthiest man for several years is a
philanthropist committed to giving 95%
of his fortune to charity. It is not
unusual that the man noted for solving
most of the software problems in the
world eventually became the richest.
Money has a path; it will always flow to
the direction where problems are solved.
The world of today is more effective just
by looking through Bill Gates’ windows!
‘’No problem can stand the assault of
sustained thinking.’’-Voltaire
Aliko Dangote, the richest man in Africa
said, ‘’every morning when I wake up, I
make up my mind to solve as many
problems, before returning home.’’
Dangote was passionate about solving
problems and undoubtedly became the
richest in Africa. Aliko Dangote, MFR,
GCON, is a Nigerian business magnate
with an estimated net worth of $18.6
billion USD as of June 2015. He was born
in Kano on 10 April 1957 and was
named ‘Aliko’ by his grandfather, Sanusi
Dantata which means ‘the victorious one
who defends humanity’. The late Alhaji
Sanusi Alhassan Dantata provided him
with the capital to start his own
business, as was the practice then. He
thus started business in Kano in 1977
trading in commodities and also building
supplies. As a young teenager growing
up, Aliko Dangote has always committed
himself to doing business, selling packs
of sweets in his secondary school days.
He has a degree in Business from Al-
Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, one of
the oldest universities on earth. Aliko
Dangote is a major employer of labour in
Nigeria and among the top employers in
West Africa, with a total workforce of
about 11,000 workers. In Nigeria today,
Dangote group with its dominance in the
sugar market and refinery business is
the main supplier (70% of the market) to
the country’s soft drinks companies,
breweries and confectioners. It is the
largest refinery in Africa and the third
largest in the world, producing 800,000
tonnes of sugar annually.
The real genius of Dangote is his ability
to transform challenges into
opportunities and opportunities into
wealth. When other entrepreneurs
termed the Nigerian environment
unfavourable and uneconomical,
Dangote surmounted the hurdle to open
economical doors where hitherto there
were walls. A man that met the need of a
nation by revolutionizing the cement
industry. In an era where there was a
“mad rush” for embarking on
construction of vast housing projects by
governments and individuals, Dangote
was able to decipher emerging industries
based on people’s need. While people
from all over the world were in Nigeria
revelling in the gluttony and indulgence
heralded by FESTAC 77, the young
Dangote saw the opportunity to advance
his business because of the massive
construction going on in various parts of
the country.
Though the Dangote Group was
established as a small trading firm in
1977, today, it is a multi-trillion naira
conglomerate with many of its operation
in Benin, Cameroon, Ghana, South
Africa, Togo, Tanzania, Ethiopia and
Zambia. Dangote Group expanded to
cover textiles, food processing, cement
manufacturing, real estate, haulage and
freight; the Dangote Group has moved
from being a trading company to being
the largest industrial group in Nigeria
and includes: Dangote sugar refinery,
Dangote cement and Dangote flour.
Dangote Foundation is the philanthropic
arm of the group where yearly he spends
millions for worthy causes such as
contribution to educational and
healthcare institutions, sinking of
boreholes and giving of scholarships. In
2014, the Nigerian government said
Dangote had donated 150 million naira
to halt the spread of Ebola. In
recognition of Aliko Dangote’s
contribution to the growth of the
Nigerian economy and his philanthropy,
he has been conferred with several
awards including the prestigious Zik-
Award for Professional Leadership
(1992) and the International Awards of
Sir Ahmadu Bello. He was also conferred
with the National Honour of Officer of
the Order of the Niger (OON) in 2000
and Commander of the Order of the
Niger (CON) in 2005. On 14 November
2011, Dangote was awarded Nigeria’s
second highest honour, the Grand
commander of the Order of the Niger
(GCON) by the former president,
Goodluck Jonathan and also named as
the Forbes Africa Person of the year
2014.
Dangote is ranked by Forbes Magazine
as the 67th richest person in the world
and the richest in Africa. He peaked on
the list as the 23rd richest person in the
world in 2014, and the richest man in
Africa. Aliko Dangote was passionate
about meeting the needs of a growing
economy and eventually became the
richest African. With his major
investments and industries in Nigeria,
he has saved several thousands of
Nigerians from the pangs of
unemployment being one of the major
employers of labour. In an economy
where many Nigerian find it easy to find
faults and travel out; Dangote was
resolute about the vast opportunities that
abound in the Nigerian economy. Where
many of his rich colleagues where
lavishing their ‘wealth’ and ‘destiny’ in
foreign lands, he alone with some
resolute few stood behind to
revolutionize what has now become
Africa’s greatest economy. Dangote did
not only believe in the Nigerian economy
but also invested into it! Aliko Dangote
was recently rated among the 100 most
powerful people in the world by Forbes
Magazine. He was listed at number 71 of
a list containing Bill Gates, Warren
Buffet, Pope Francis and world leaders
such as Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin
and Angela Merkel. Apart from offering
employment opportunities to elite
graduates from different ethnic
backgrounds, he reduces the level of
crime by engaging youths who are school
leavers in the area of transportation,
product packaging, and security amidst
others.
Steve Maraboli said, ‘’sometimes
problems don’t require the solution to
solve them, instead they require
maturity to outgrow them.’’ The Nigerian
youths should be a solution and not a
problem in the contemporary Nigeria.
Let us stop the ‘mad’ and ‘demented’
rush to foreign lands; let us proffer
solutions to our national problems. To
the Nigerian youths; I say, ‘’we are the
solution that Nigeria is waiting for!’’
Gbenga Adebambo is the dean of schools
at the Educational Advancement Centre
(EAC), an author, youth specialist,
international coach and the Editor-In-
Chief of MAXIMUM IMPACT MAGAZINE.
He is also the founder of the youth
ministry called STOP ‘T’(Seeing
Tomorrow’s Opportunities and Potentials
Today), a ministry that is involved in
discovering and nurturing hidden
potentials in youths in order to equip
them for tomorrow’s challenges,
opportunities and responsibilities.