Aliko Dangote, Chairman of the Dangote Group has called for an end to medical tourism.
According to him, Nigeria is ripe enough to produce its own drugs.
The billionaire businessman stated this during a panel discussion at the Gates Foundation’s Goalkeepers event held in Lagos on Wednesday.
He emphasised the importance of every Nigerian being able to treat themselves in Nigeria when they fall sick. He hinted that it was essential to partner with Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation to achieve this.
Dangote said, “What we need to do is to make sure we stop this health tourism and we should now get in to start producing our own drugs.
“We should now make sure that when we are sick, we don’t have to travel abroad, all of us, but we need to do a partnership with Bill (Gates).”
He recalled that the Dangote Foundation, through partnership with the Gates Foundation, has helped to end Polio in Nigeria and has done quite a lot in improving nutrition.
According to him, in terms of business, his company has done a lot by reversing many things. He added that Nigeria used to be the second-largest importer of cement in the world, but now it exports more cement than any other African country.
Dangote also highlighted how farmers previously struggled to access fertilizer, but today, he has built the second-largest fertilizer plant in the world from the ground up.
“So, Nigeria now, not only export, we actually export 37% of our fertilizer to the United States of America,” he said.
Speaking on petroleum, Dangote maintained that he did what nobody has ever done before by building a 650,000bpd refinery, revealing that in May 2025 alone, the Dangote Refinery exported 400,000 metric tons of petrol.
According to him, this has ended Nigeria’s dependency on imported petrol, as the country no longer imports the product.
