Meet Nigeria’s Abdulsamad Rabiu, Africa's Newest Billionaire

Nigeria’s Abdulsamad Rabiu (53), a commodities tycoon, is Africa’s newest billionaire whose fortune increased from US$670 million in 2012 to US$1.2 billion in 2013 according to Forbes Africa.

Abdulsamad Rabiu was born into affluence. His father, Isyaku Rabiu, was one of the richest and most influential businessmen in northern Nigeria in the 1970s and 80s.

Abdulsamad’s father, born in 1928, started out trading in commodities and beverages before venturing into commercial real estate by snapping up dilapidated properties, renovating them, and flipping for profit. With a penchant for serial entrepreneurship, Isyaku later ventured into textiles too and eventually set up his own textile factory.

But he did not stop there. He acquired a franchise to sell sewing machines all over northern Nigeria to tailors and exploited other emerging opportunities in the nation’s fledgling oil industry and construction sector.

The end of the 70s established Isyaku’s reputation as a formidable business tycoon. In 1984, the Head of State at the time, General Muhammadu Buhari, who had taken over the government in a military coup, arrested Isyaku and jailed him along with other commodity traders on charges of rice hoarding.

It was a trying period for the Rabius. Alhaji Isyaku Rabiu was the head of a very large family of four wives and many children. Among his children were his first son, Nafiu Rabiu, a prominent businessman; Abdulsamad Rabiu, the Chairman/CEO, BUA Group; and Rabiu Rabiu an equally successful businessman with extensive interests in aviation. But it was Abdulsamad Rabiu, perhaps the most famous of the Rabiu clan, who took over the family business at the age of 24, following the incarceration of his father.

Abdulsamad Rabiu managed the family business throughout the period of his father’s detention. His father had adequately mentored and prepared him for the challenges of managing such a multifaceted business. When he had successfully navigated his father’s business through stormy waters, he established a small trading and manufacturing company called it BUA International Limited. The company was based in Lagos.

Today, that small trading concern he set up 20 years ago is now the BUA Group – a $2 billion (sales) diversified group with tentacles in cement production, sugar refining, flour milling, ports concession, oil and gas, shipping and real estate development.

Forbes Africa journalists in London, Lagos and Johannesburg working with the Forbes wealth unit in San Francisco tracked down Rabiu’s fortune for weeks.

And this is what they found:

•    He owns property in Britain worth US$62 million and US$19 million in South Africa. It includes the penthouse of the luxury The One and Only Hotel in Cape Town, worth US$12.6 million.

•    Rabiu owns two airplanes: a private jet, an eight-seater Gulfstream G550 powered by a Rolls Royce BR710 engine, worth US$44.9 million, as well as an US$18 million Legacy 600 aircraft.

•    He owns the BUA Group in Nigeria dealing in cement, sugar and flour. Its subsidiaries do business in real estate, steel, oil gas and shipping.

“We know that Abdulsamad will be on the list as a new billionaire from Nigeria, thanks to reporting by Forbes Africa,” Kerry Dolan, senior editor in charge of Forbes wealth unit in the US, said.

“It was very good for Forbes Africa to break this story after a lot of checking, research and hard work,” the magazine managing editor Chris Bishop said.

“Rabiu, unlike most rich people on the continent, had the courage to be transparent in opening up his wealth to scrutiny.”

Every year Forbes adds a handful of new billionaires to its famous list of Africa’s richest.  The list, which will be published in Forbes Africa in December, will expand this year from 40 to 50 to reflect the growing numbers of the super-rich in Africa.

There are currently 55 billionaires in Africa, UK-based Telegraph newspaper reported a few weeks ago, adding that Nigeria’s Alhaji Aliko Dangote (56) is still Africa’s richest man, with a US$20 billion fortune.

Reliable sources say most billionaires in Africa have close links with some of the continent’s ruling parties and corrupt governments.