[Aliko Dangote, President of Dangote Group, sounding the gong at the Nigeria Stock Exchange]
[Nigerian news dailies]
[Dangote walking to the Nigeria Stock Exchange]
[Guests at the Nigeria Stock Exchange]
[Dangote walking to the podium]
Aliko Dangote (speech): “These are moments in the life of a nation when an occasion becomes greater than the event itself. When a transaction becomes a statement, when an investment becomes a possibility. When what initially belongs to a company begins in a deeper sense now belongs to the people. Today is such a moment. Today is a historic day, not only for the Dangote Petroleum Refinery, FZE, and the Dangote Group, but for Nigeria’s capital market and, by and large, Africa, and indeed every Nigerian and African who believes in the promise of our nation.”
[Signage of Nigeria Exchange Group]
[Guests at the Nigeria Stock Exchange]
Aliko Dangote (speech): “It is an opportunity for low-earning people. It is an opportunity. Now we’re looking at what do we create. What do we want to really create? What we want to create is the likes of Amazon, the likes of Microsoft, where people bought the shares for next to nothing, and now those shares have become something big.”
[Dangote receiving an ovation for his speech]
[Stock exchange staff sitting]
Damilola Ajayi (interview): “This IPO is a landmark transaction for many reasons. First, you can start with the size. This is the largest IPO ever in the history of the Nigerian capital markets. Secondly, this is the first fully digital IPO from a retail perspective in our market. And the anticipation is that we will have millions of new investors coming into our market; millions of Nigerians will be able to participate in this offer. So, this is truly historic. This is truly a landmark transaction.”
[Guests at the Dangote Refinery IPO launch]
Neo Mooki (interview): “Africa has a lot of resources, but these resources have been exported, processed elsewhere, and then Africa has been importing inflation instead. And we import other people’s stuff, and we ship out our resources. This IPO is about saying that Africans are going to have an ownership of their own resources. It is important to Africa also because it is proof that an African, a Black man, can build a company that can have global significance.”
[Dangote and guests at the event]
This script was provided by The Associated Press.