World’s richest black person and President of the Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote says Nigeria will be the largest exporter of urea in Africa by 2017.

He made this declaration during an interactive session between members of the organised private sector and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Godwin Emefiele, concerning global oil prices in relation to Nigeria’s foreign exchange market.

“Nigeria will be the biggest exporter of urea in Africa by 2017. Most of these plans are in the pipeline,” said Dangote, who is building a 2 billion dollar fertilizer plant in the country’s Edo State. He urged all members of the private sector present to support the government’s approach to diversifying the economy. Urea is an inexpensive form of nitrogen fertilizer with an NPK (nitrogen-phosphorus-potassium) ratio of 46-0-0.

Dangote noted that the recent global crisis has made the need to refocus on ways to further develop the Nigerian economy more dire. He described it as an opportunity for stakeholders in the country’s economy to sit down and discuss about how to diversify the economy and encourage more exports, “because that is the way we should be going instead of going to the Central Bank of Nigeria every day to buy forex”.

The rate at which the Nigerian population is growing, it is projected to hit 210 million by 2020. This will therefore be a great opportunity to promote exports and expand the economy.

In response to a statement made by the CBN governor that sugar is one of the items importers always seek forex to import, Dangote had this to say: “I can assure you that in the next four years, you will not allocate forex for sugar importation.”

He then concluded that boosting productivity is paramount to the strengthening of the economy. With the plans on ground, Dangote expects the country to become the highest seller of foreign exchange by the first quarter of 2018. “Our plan now is to start exporting most of our other products.”