Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, has raised fresh concerns about the high cost of doing business within the continent, revealing that it can be more expensive to ship goods from Lagos to Accra than from Spain to Nigeria.
He made the remark during an interview with Makhtar Diop, Managing Director of the International Finance Corporation, where he spoke extensively on the barriers limiting intra-African trade.
According to him, the situation reflects deep structural inefficiencies in transport, logistics, and regional trade systems across Africa.
“It costs more to ship from Lagos port to Accra than from Spain to Lagos,” Dangote said, stressing that the imbalance makes regional trade unnecessarily difficult and expensive.
“There’s no way you can do trade with your neighbours like this,” he added. “When we look at the transportation sector, most of the people who own ships that move goods around are not Africans.”
Dangote also pointed out that the lack of free movement of people and goods continues to slow down investment and economic integration across the continent.
“Somebody like myself, I need 38 visas to move around. How do I invest now if I’m not able to move around? It doesn’t make sense. Nobody has time to keep applying for visas,” he said.
He warned that without addressing these barriers, Africa’s economic potential would remain largely unrealised.
“Without this, there’s no way we are going to have a very prosperous Africa,” he said. “I cannot move my goods from Lagos to the Republic of Benin, and when you try to cross the border, you can be there for a week—if you are lucky.”
Dangote, who leads the Dangote Group with operations in multiple African countries, said true growth will only come when trade becomes seamless across borders.
His conglomerate currently spans cement, fertiliser, and petroleum refining, with operations in 17 African countries. Dangote Cement alone operates in 11 countries and generated over $3 billion in revenue in 2025.
The group is also expanding aggressively, with a $1 billion investment plan to raise cement production capacity to 80 million tonnes.
At the centre of his industrial drive is the $20 billion Dangote Petroleum Refinery, one of the largest single-train refineries in the world, currently undergoing expansion to increase capacity to about 1.4 million barrels per day.
He also leads one of Africa’s largest fertiliser plants, aimed at reducing reliance on imports and boosting agricultural output.
However, Dangote stressed that these investments will only reach their full impact if Africa fixes its trade bottlenecks and allows the free movement of goods, services, and people across the continent.
