Africa's richest man spent $20 million trying to fix Nigeria's tomato problem and the country let him down
Billionaires Africa | 05.06.2026 13:34
Aliko Dangote saw the problem clearly. Nigeria was spending hundreds of millions of dollars every year importing tomato paste from China, much of it adulterated with starch and flour and containing as little as 10 percent actual tomato. Meanwhile, Nigerian farmers in Kano and across the north were producing some of the finest tomatoes in West Africa, most of which rotted in the open air before anyone could do anything useful with them. The solution seemed obvious: build a factory, buy the tomatoes, process the paste domestically, and keep the money inside Nigeria.
