Speaking at Unstoppable Africa 2026, Dangote called for more African capital to remain on the continent and support businesses capable of driving industrial growth.

He argued that African investors often move their money abroad before foreign investors have committed capital to projects on the continent.

“Even here in the U.S., Americans will start investing, then later on they will be joined by other people . We are doing it in reverse, where we take our own money to their banks, strengthen their banks, and we don’t really keep our money on our own continent,” he stressed.

“We must industrialise our continent. So the whole thing now has changed. We want to lead and champion the industrialisation of Africa,” he added.

Dangote Pushes Local Processing

Dangote said Africa could retain more wealth by processing its natural resources before exporting them.

He pointed to his 700,000-barrel-per-day Nigerian refinery as an example of how increased processing capacity could change the continent’s relationship with international markets.

“Somebody asked me yesterday, ‘Oh, Africa was so lucky. If not for this refinery, during this Hormuz crisis, they would have been in trouble.’ I said, ‘No, Europe is luckier because we are supplying most of their jet fuel,’” he said.

“So you can see now Africa supplying Europe. That’s a very big change,” he continued. “All this bauxite, all this iron ore, all this copper — we will add value, we will make a lot of money, then we’ll send them finished products rather than sending raw materials.”

‘Make Africa Self-Sufficient’

Dangote also called for stronger African ownership of companies operating across the continent.

“Part of our legacy is to make Africa self-sufficient <…> We don’t want to come and list first in New York. We must list it on the shores of Africa to make it an African company,” he said.

He said the Nigerian share offering for his refinery attracted an “avalanche” of investors when it opened, with the rush causing apps and systems to crash.

The public offering was launched on September 14, with 4.1 billion shares priced at 525 naira each. It aims to raise about 2.15 trillion naira ($1.6 billion), while the group plans to expand refinery capacity to 1.4 million barrels per day.

Dangote also announced plans for a major refinery project in Lamu, Kenya. He said the project would be launched on September 30 and construction was expected to take about three years.

Unstoppable Africa 2026 is bringing together heads of state, investors and business leaders in New York under the theme “Powering Business, Scaling Economies, Shaping the Future.” Investment, industrialisation and keeping more value from Africa’s resources are among the issues on the agenda.