The state-of-the-art business school being built at Bayero University Kano (BUK) in Kano State, Nigeria, is scheduled for handover to university management in February.
The N1,2 billion (R39,8 million) bill is being footed by Dangote through his Aliko Dangote Foundation as part of an initiative to “build entrepreneurship in the subconscious of Nigerians through education at the highest level”.
His foundation will also be funding a second business school at the University of Ibadan in Western Nigeria.
Entrepreneurship has long been touted as the solution to growing weak economies, particularly among emerging markets.
Professor Murtala Sagagi, BUK Dean of Faculty at the Dangote Business School, says the school has been in the pipelines for over five years.
“We have an ambition to have a business school and we could not go ahead with the project because there was no befitting structure to accommodate the kind of dream we had, but with Dangote coming in about five years ago – that was when the university decided to say this is the time to have the business school,” he says.
“We are having large-scale investors from China, Spain and all over the world coming to Kano to make investment and this means the state needs an institution, a kind of faculty, school that can be able to develop the capacity not only the management of those organisations, but those people who are working in different units or department within the organisation.”
Sagagi called on other wealth businessmen and women in the country to contribute to the educational advancement of citizens as a way of boosting Nigeria’s economic development.
“If Nigeria is blessed with two of Alhaji Dangote, Nigeria will witness unprecedented economic boost in terms of job creation, employment and poverty reduction,” he says.
