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Aliko Dangote Foundation’s N1.2 billion hostel donation to Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria historic in Nigeria’s 71-year-old university education system, President Muhammadu Buhari has disclosed.
He noted that the gesture was the single largest generosity by an individual since the establishment of the nation’s first university in 1948.
Represented at the commissioning in Kaduna State by the Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Professor Abubakar Adamu Rasheed, the president lauded Dangote Group’s chief executive for his entrepreneurship and philanthropy.
Governor Nasir Ahmad el-Rufai, who is also an alumnus of the institution, hailed Dangote for the novel project, describing his kind-heartedness as unprecedented.
Vice Chancellor of the university, Professor Ibrahim Garba, said the Africa’s richest man would remain dearly to the ivory tower.
He said:” The student population of ABU is over 50,000, made up of about 35,000 undergraduates and about 15,000 postgraduates. Every year, 11,500 undergraduates and about 6,000 postgraduates are admitted while about 6,000 undergraduates and 3,000 postgraduates respectively graduate. In any one academic year, we are only able to accommodate about 13,000 students on our two campuses.
“We are happy that Alhaji Aliko Dangote has fulfilled the pledge he made in 2016 to build 10 blocks of hostels for Ahmadu Bello University’s students to improve their living conditions.
“We may accommodate six students per room. This will certainly go a long way in ameliorating the accommodation scarcity bedevilling the university.”
The donor, who bagged an Honorary Doctorate Degree, submitted: “If there are two things that I am passionate about, they are education and entrepreneurship. I believe they go hand-in-hand.”
He said it was this philosophy that led to the creation of the Dangote Academy in 2010 where about 1000 graduates had been absorbed after training.
The business mogul expressed the hope that the occupants of Aliko Dangote Hall would in the future become successful entrepreneurs like him.