Why Dangote’s net worth dropped by $5bn in 2015- Expert

Nigeria’s sliding currency, poor performance of the capital market, international community’s scepticism of the future of Nigeria’s economy and federal government’s delay in forming the nation’s economic management team are responsible for the drop in the net worth of Aliko Dangote by $5bn this year.
Speaking exclusively to Daily Trust yesterday, a lecturer at the Kaduna State University, Dr. Aminu Usman, blamed the dip in Dangote’s fortunes on the unstable nature of African economies.
Dangote, who is the President of the Dangote Group, was rated as Africa’s richest man by Forbes for the fifth time.
However, Forbes reported that his net worth of $16.7bn recorded this year is a drop of $5bn from his fortune recorded in 2014.
Though, he maintained his position as the richest person in Africa, Dangote fell from his 23th richest person in the world in 2014 to the 67th in 2015.
Analysing the drop in Dangote’s fortunes, Dr Usman said the development cannot be distanced from the fall in the value of the Naira.
He noted that “The weaker the Nigerian currency is, the weaker his net worth will be.”
Dr. Usman also linked the development to the recent performance of the Nigerian capital market, which he described as “poor.”
“When you look at what the players in the Nigerian capital market are saying, they lost over N1trn by the time the new government came into being. So, definitely, it will affect people like Dangote whose major shareholding is listed on the market. So if the entire market lost over a trillion naira, the major players in that market are the ones badly hit,” he said.
The university don also traced the problem to lack of a defined economic roadmap by the present administration.
“Up till now, the Nigerian government does not have a defined economic agenda. Nobody can actually say which direction the government will take. There is no official communication of the government,” he said.
 The lecturer bemoaned the delay in setting up an economic management team to steer the economic affairs of the nation.
“And up till today, we don’t have an economic management team to steer the economy on the direction that the government is going. The new minister of the economy is just coming in and the President has not announced his Special Adviser on Economic Affairs,” he said.