Dangote’s Younger Brother Launches A $48m Food Company
Dansa Group, a subsidiary of Dangote group of companies is setting up a $48.5 million high energy food processing plant –the largest in Africa – in the country to conform with the agriculture sector transformation of Nigeria’s government.
Dansa Group President, Alhaji Sanni Dangote, was reported to have made this known at the meeting of a High Level World Advisory Group in New York which had global economic and political leaders like Bill Gates, former UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, Dr Donald Kaberuke (AfDB President) and Dr Kanayo Nwanze (President , International Funds for agriculture) in attendance.
The Minister of Agriculture, Akinwunmi Adesina who revealed this on the sideline of the 68th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York told journalists that the world leaders are interested in Nigeria’s agricultural transformation as they recognise the need for the country to diversify into other sector of the economy.
The Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA) was launched in 2012 to make Nigeria a global powerhouse in agriculture. Akinwunmi said the transformation programme have helped create about 3.2 million jobs and helped Nigeria reduce food bill by N800b ($4.9 billion).
“As I have said many times, this is not a populist issue. We are seriously restructuring this sector for greater performance because the future of Nigeria is not in oil but in agriculture. It is not the agriculture in the way we have been doing it before but now as a business.”
He said Bill Gates is already spending millions of dollars in Nigeria to support this agenda while the African Development Bank is committing in $500 million.
“All these are World leaders who will not waste their time on what is not working,” the Minister concluded.
