His Net Worth Rose 120% in 12 Months
At most gatherings of Africa’s business elite, Aliko Dangote is the name in the room. The tower. The refinery. The scale that demands to be acknowledged. Abdulsamad Rabiu is often the other name — the one that earns a nod, a respectful qualifier, a “second-richest man in Nigeria.” It is a description that has always undersold him.
In 2025 and 2026, the market corrected the record — loudly, and with extraordinary speed. Rabiu became Africa’s biggest wealth gainer of the year. His fortune grew by more than any other billionaire on the continent. And the businesses driving that growth are still accelerating.
Rabiu — founder and chairman of BUA Group, born in Kano in 1960 into the family of industrialist Khalifah Isyaku Rabiu — did not arrive at wealth dramatically. He built it the way cement sets: methodically, under pressure, across long periods of time. In 1988, he started BUA International Limited, trading rice, edible oil, and iron. By 2008, he had broken an eight-year sugar monopoly by commissioning the second-largest sugar refinery in sub-Saharan Africa. By 2009, he had acquired a controlling stake in a listed cement company in northern Nigeria.
He was building, quietly, toward something very large.
The Year That Changed Everything
In 2026, Forbes published its Africa billionaires ranking. Rabiu appeared at number three, with a net worth of $11.2 billion — a 120% increase in twelve months. It was the largest single-year gain of any billionaire on the entire Africa list. A year earlier, he had ranked sixth. He had leapfrogged three places. The gain, $6.1 billion in twelve months, was driven by what had become his two publicly traded pillars.
BUA Cement posted a net profit surge of 381.7% in 2025, rising to N356 billion with a net margin of 30.43% — making it Nigeria’s most profitable cement company. Revenue crossed N1 trillion for the first time. Shares rose 135% over the year, pushing the stock to roughly N270 by March 2026. BUA Foods posted a 91% increase in profit after tax for 2025, climbing to N507.73 billion, with revenue up 18% to N1.80 trillion. Rabiu controls 93% of BUA Foods and approximately 97.66% of BUA Cement.
By March 2026, Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index had Rabiu’s net worth at $14 billion — a gain of $2.2 billion in a single month. He had briefly overtaken Dangote in monthly wealth gains.
The Empire Still Under Construction
BUA Group is not a finished project. Beyond its two listed companies, the conglomerate is constructing a 200,000 barrels-per-day refinery and petrochemicals complex in Akwa Ibom State, valued at over $3.5 billion. It has partnered with Abu Dhabi’s AD Ports Group and MAIR Group to develop an integrated sugar refining, agro-industrial, and logistics platform linking West Africa to the Gulf. A 40-tonne-per-hour animal feed mill in Kano state is expected to be completed by mid-2027.
BUA Foods declared a proposed dividend of N28 per share for 2025 — more than double the N13 distributed the previous year. With Rabiu holding approximately 16.17 billion shares, his gross dividend from BUA Foods alone was estimated at $323.4 million for the year.
That is not a man who has arrived somewhere. That is a man still in motion.
The Other Billionaire — and Why Nigeria’s Business Story Is Bigger Than One Man
In a country whose wealth narrative has long been written around one name, Rabiu’s rise is a structural argument that investors tracking Nigerian equities should take seriously. Nigeria’s industrial base — cement, sugar, food processing, energy — can produce more than one titan. The Nigerian Exchange’s bull run in 2025 did not discriminate between conglomerates. It rewarded discipline, diversification, and patience with capital. BUA Cement rose 135%. BUA Foods rose 92%. The gains were not anomalies — they reflected genuine earnings growth, with BUA Cement posting a net profit margin of 30.43% and revenue crossing N1 trillion for the first time.
Nigeria’s four largest billionaires collectively held around $43 billion in early 2026, up from roughly $24.8 billion twelve months earlier. For investors watching where Africa’s private wealth concentrates next, BUA Group’s pipeline is worth understanding: a $3.5 billion refinery and petrochemicals complex under construction in Akwa Ibom, a Gulf logistics corridor with Abu Dhabi’s AD Ports Group, and a growing food manufacturing footprint across Nigeria.
Rabiu built a $14 billion empire in a city that was not Lagos, without the megaphone that Lagos provides. The market noticed eventually.
Africa’s biggest wealth gainer in 2026 is the man who was already there — just larger than anyone had noticed.
