Abdulsamad Rabiu, founder and Executive Chairman of the BUA Group, has been honoured with the Industrialist of the Year Award for West Africa at the All Africa Business Leaders Award (AABLA). The award, which is organized by ABN productions in partnership with business news channel CNBC Africa, recognized the Nigerian billionaire for epitomizing “the core values of a successful leader, strength, innovation, ingenuity and foresight”.
Rabiu’s BUA Group is one of the largest food and infrastructure conglomerates on the African continent; its scope encompasses the sugar, cement, estate, and port operations sectors. In recent times, the conglomerate has expanded its operations in Nigeria and in other parts of the continent, with the commencement of construction work on a $900 million cement plant in Edo State. It has also been in talks with Chinese engineering company Sinoma to build a steel plant in Nigeria, as well as two cement plants in East Africa at the cost of $1.9 billion. It also plans to have a sugar refinery in Port Harcourt running as from 2017, with a production capacity of 720,000 metric tonnes of sugar.
At the award ceremony organized in Lagos recently, Rabiu thanked its organizers for the recognition they had accorded him; he also attributed his success to the dedicated staff who he said were indispensable to the success of his businesses.
The CNBC All Africa Business Award annually honors outstanding leaders and game changers on the African business scene. Its organizers say that nominees for its awards must have, among other things, created significant impact in their industry. It has been suggested that Rabiu was awarded on the basis of his company’s drive to expand its operations in Nigeria and the African continent, thus potentially creating hundreds of new jobs.