Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, said at the commissioning of the group’s cement factory and coal powered electricity plant in Ndola, Zambia today that 10 more factories are in the pipeline for Africa.

The $420 million Ndola plant is the group’s sixth integrated plant commissioned outside Nigeria.

He said it was in furtherance of the company’s plan to invest massively in Africa bearing in mind the impact it would have on Africans.

According to him, the group will in a few days inaugurate 400 trucks to be used in transporting the cement that will be produced.

He added that the use of the trucks would create thousands of jobs.

Dangote announced plans by the group to create 16 cement plants across Africa to produce at least 80 million tons of cement and address the infrastructure needs of the continent, half of which would be produced in Nigeria.

He said that the company had set aside $500,000 to support community development in Ndola and that plans were on to immediately set up schools, hospitals, and scholarships for the host community as part of its corporate social responsibility.

In his address President Edgar Lungu of Zambia congratulated Dangote Group for its courage to invest in his country and for being the most diversified African investor.

He said that his administration would expand trade and investment relations with Nigeria, and called on other Nigerian companies to emulate Dangote Group by investing in his country as his administration was poised to providing investment incentives.

Lungu said that with the massive construction works going on in the country, the demand for cement had risen, thereby leading the new cement plant to reduce the high cost of the commodity due to the massive production of cement it had to embark on.

Nigeria’s Vice President Yemi Osinbajo who also spoke at the event,identified human capital development, political stability and economic integration as central to the rapid development of Africa and the emancipation of its people from poverty.

The vice president said that the continent needed to free itself from issues that impoverished the people and begin to use its resources to develop the continent.

“One of the key challenges to rapid growth in Africa is extreme poverty; Africa unfortunately remains the poorest continent in the world; the implications are illiteracy, poor health, and low income per capita.

“Consequently, despite our large population our markets are not deep; most cannot afford goods and services; this is a cross-cutting Africa problem but the only solution is substantially investing in human capacity development.

“We simply must spend money on the people; we must spend more on education, technology and healthcare; we must invest in technology, infrastructure to enable our bright boys and girls to hone their skills in the competitive world of technology.

“We must provide benefit for the disabled poor, the elderly poor and otherwise vulnerable; we cannot afford to leave any one behind.“

The vice president also stressed the need for the integration of African economies and cooperation between member countries.

He said: “With 54 countries and well over a billion people, and the economic bloc cooperating through enabling trade agreements, collaborative tariff regimes, multilateral trade concessions and agreements will open up the fastest growing economy in the world.“

He said that intra-African trade was low at the moment with and identified Europe, America and Asia as the continent’s strongest allies.

Osinbajo added that Africa must challenge its policy intellectuals, entrepreneurs and politicians to think through what seemed to be the most logical course of action.

He identified “neighbor principle“, a legal jargon, as one that could ensure that the continent derived maximum benefits from proximity and affinities.

“Enough has been said about Africa Economic integration, it is time to act,“ he stated.

The ceremony was attended by many of Dangote ‘ s business and political associates, including Governor Adams Oshiomhole, former governor Niyi Adebayo, Femi Otedola, Sani Dangote and many others.