We Need To Stop Health Tourism, Start Producing Our Own Drugs — Dangote

The Chairman of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, has expressed the need for Nigerians to stop medical tourism and for the country to also start producing drugs locally.

He said this at the Gates Foundation’s Goalkeepers event held in Lagos on Wednesday.
Stressing the need for every Nigerian including the rich to be able to treat themselves in Nigeria when they fall sick, Dangote hinted that it is important to partner with Bill Gates  and the Gates Foundation to achieve this.

“What we need to do is to make sure we stop this health tourism and we should now get in to start producing our own drugs,” Dangote said while speaking during a panel discussion at the event.
“We should now make sure that when we are sick, we don’t have to travel abroad, all of us, but we need to do a partnership with Bill (Gates).”

Africa’s richest man recalled that the Dangote Foundation through partnership with the Gates Foundation has helped to end Polio in Nigeria and did quite a lot in improving nutrition.

In terms of business, Dangote said that his company has done a lot by reversing a lot of things. According to him, Nigeria used to be the second largest importer of cement in the world but now it exports cement more than any other African country.

He also highlighted how farmers previously struggled to access fertilizer, but today, he has built the second-largest fertilizer plant in the world from the ground up.

“So, Nigeria now, not only export, we actually export 37% of our fertilizer to the United States of America,” he said.

In petroleum, Dangote stated that he did what nobody has ever done before by building 650,000bpd refinery. He disclosed that in the month of May 2025 alone, the Dangote Refinery exported 400,000 metric tons of petrol.

According to him, this has ended Nigeria’s dependency on imported petrol, as the country no longer imports the product.

Hosted by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for the first time in Lagos, the Goalkeepers event brought together global leaders, policymakers, and changemakers to assess progress toward the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Other notable dignitaries at the event included Bill Gates Dangote; the Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu; and the Governor of Gombe State, Inuwa Yahaya, among others.