Aliko Dangote, Chairman of the Dangote Group, has called on Nigeria to curb its reliance on medical tourism and prioritise domestic drug manufacturing.
He made the remarks on Wednesday during the Gates Foundation’s Goalkeepers event in Lagos.
Dangote emphasised that all Nigerians, including the wealthy, should have access to quality healthcare within the country. To realize this goal, he highlighted the importance of collaboration with Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation to strengthen local healthcare infrastructure and pharmaceutical production.
The billionaire businessman stressed that reducing foreign medical trips and boosting local drug manufacturing would not only improve healthcare access but also retain vital resources within Nigeria’s economy
“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,” Dangote said while speaking during a panel discussion at the event.
“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).”
Africa’s richest man recalled that the Dangote Foundation through partnership with the Gates Foundation has helped to end Polio in Nigeria and did quite a lot in improving nutrition.
In terms of business, Dangote said that his company has done a lot by reversing a lot of things. According to him, Nigeria used to be the second largest importer of cement in the world but now it exports cement more than any other African country.
He 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.
In petroleum, Dangote stated that he did what nobody has ever done before by building 650,000bpd refinery. He disclosed that in the month of 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.
Hosted by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for the first time in Lagos, the Goalkeepers event brought together global leaders, policymakers, and changemakers to assess progress toward the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Other notable dignitaries at the event included Bill Gates Dangote; the Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu; and the Governor of Gombe State, Inuwa Yahaya, among others.
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