The Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Nigerians in Diaspora Commission, Abike Dabiri-Erewa has claimed that the richest man in Sudan is a Nigerian.
Abike made the claim on Monday, April 24 while responding to a tweet by a Nigerian user asking why some Nigerians decided to study in Sudan.
“Nigerian study in Sudan, how on earth is this possible,” the Twitter user, @Shegelee005 tweeted.
Responding to the tweet, Abike replied the tweet with a caption that reads :
“We have well over 3 million residents there. Even more, let me just put it at that estimate. The richest person in Sudan is a Nigerian.”
There’s ongoing violence in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, due to disagreement between factions of Sudan Army Chief, Abdel Fattah Al-Bahran, and the rival Rapid Support Forces of his former deputy, Mohamed Daglo.
The violence has led to the death of hundreds and left many foreign nationals stranded with citizens calling on the Nigerian government to quickly evacuate Nigerians in the country.
THE CLAIM
The richest man in Sudan is a Nigerian
THE FINDINGS
Findings by FactCheckHub show the claim is FALSE.
According to Billionaires Africa, a website that documents news and intelligence about the richest people in Africa listed Mo Ibrahim the top richest man in Sudan and one of the richest Africans in the world but findings by FactCheckHub show that he is based in the United Kingdom, not Sudan.
The second person on the list is Sudanese businessman, Osama Daoud Abdellatif who is the chairman of the largest conglomerate in Sudan, DAL Group, a large number of companies based in Khartoum, Sudan.
Daoud inherited the engineering and tractor company from his father in the 1960s and rapidly expanded it. The company now has annual revenues of more than $1.6 billion and tentacles in food and beverage, agriculture, heavy equipment retail, automobile distribution, education, and healthcare according to Billionaires Africa.
According to Financial Times, the company was the first company in Sudan to offer land preparation and other agricultural services as a contractor and initiated new plowing techniques in both Rain Fed and Irrigated Sectors.
Daoud is from Wadi Halfa City in the north of Sudan and currently resides in the country. He graduated from Manchester University in 1972 and received an Honorary Ph.D. in Business Management from Sudan University.
He is neither born nor grew up in Nigeria.
THE VERDICT
The claim by Abike Dabiri-Erewa, a Nigerian is the richest man in Sudan is FALSE as findings by FactCheckHub show that based on publicly available data, the richest man in Sudan is the chairman of DAL Group, Osama Daoud Abdellatif.
By Nurudeen Akewushola
