Nasarawa Trade Fair: Dangote Says More Jobs Coming

The Dangote Group has assured that its widening business footprint across Nigeria and the rest of Africa is set to yield significant employment opportunities.

Speaking on its Special Day celebration at the just concluded Nasarawa Trade Fair in the state capital, Lafia, Regional Director and Special Adviser to the President of Dangote Group, Fatima Wali-Abdurrahman, said new jobs and new roles are being created as the company expands its investments and scales up its operations across its Strategic Business Units.

Dangote Group is Nigeria’s second-largest employer of labour after the federal government.

Group president and chief executive of the company, Aliko Dangote, noted last week in Lagos, that expanding the Dangote Petroleum Refinery from 650,000 barrels per day to 1.4 million could draw in as many as 95,000 skilled workers at the peak of construction.

Mrs Wali-Abdurrahman, who was represented by the company’s National Assembly Lead, Hon. Shuaibu Abdullahi, said Nasarawa State was home to Dangote’s biggest Backward Integration project in the sugar sector, the Nasarawa Sugar Company Limited (NSCL).

She added that the project’s completion would unlock a new wave of employment, creating expanded opportunities for the people of Nasarawa State and Nigeria.

According to the Regional Director, the conglomerate is expected to generate thousands of direct and indirect jobs from expansion in its key businesses, which include: petroleum, fertiliser, cement, agriculture, sugar and salt, among others.

Speaking about the company’s Vision 2030, she said: “The Vision is a commitment to transform Nigeria and Africa from a consumption-based economy into a production-based powerhouse.”

She added: Nasarawa State occupies a strategic position in our long-term investment plans. It is home to Dangote’s Nasarawa Sugar Company Limited (NSCL) in Tunga, which, when completed, will be one of the biggest sugar investments on the African continent.”

Speaking earlier, a director of Industry and Investment at the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Investment, Catherine Bako, said the Nasarawa State government under Governor Abdullahi Sule had provided an enabling environment for private-sector investors.

According to her, the government has entrenched ease of doing business as its cardinal objective.

The director of Trade at the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Investment, Dr Ahmed Agbo, told the audience at a panel session on the Dangote Special Day that the state has numerous mineral resources that will attract potential investors.

Agbo said the state would like to partner with the Dangote Group to explore the numerous mineral resources and industrial raw materials.

The chairman of the Nigerian Association of Small-Scale Industrialists (NASSI), Nidan Sambo Manasseh, said: “The Dangote Vision 2030 is about expansion, scale, and self-sufficiency. In Nasarawa, we are offering something practical to support that vision-a ready environment where large industry can plug into existing raw materials and an emerging SME base. This is where vision meets opportunity.”