Forbes Magazine recently released the list of Africa’s wealthiest. The publication listed 18 billionaires are worth an estimated $84.9 billion–15% more than a year ago.
While Africa’s richest continues to get richer, one glaring issue stood out from the list—less than a third of the billionaires listed are Black.
Aliko Dangote is the richest Black man in Africa, with an estimated net worth of $14 billion. He is also the richest Black man in the world.
Dangote is followed by Nigerian businessman Abdul Samad Rabiu, who has a net worth of $6.9 billion. Mike Adenuga, Patrice Motsepe and Strive Masiyiwa also made the list. South Africa and Egypt have five billionaires each, while Nigeria has three and Morocco has two.
The majority of those featured on the list are of European descent (Afrikaners.)
White colonizers got a head start in the economy, particularly in South Africa, where apartheid legally segregated and oppressed the local Black population until the early 1990s. White South Africans still hold an undeserved majority of the country’s wealth and land.
Two primary white groups emigrated to South Africa. The Boers traveled from Holland—later referring to themselves as Afrikaners. British, French and German colonists soon followed. The descendants continue to reap the rewards centuries later.
During an interview with Africa’s second richest man, Johann Rupert, he pompously shot down the concept of “white monopoly capital.”
“In a sense, the Afrikaner [a white South African minority] was downtrodden,” Rupert said of his family and others to South Africa’s News 24. “But they were driven. They studied like crazy, they saved like crazy. They didn’t go and buy BMWs and hang around at Taboo or The Sands [fancy clubs] all the time,” he said.
