The Aliko Dangote Foundation plans to donate 10 shares each to 2 million women as part of an initiative aimed at helping vulnerable women build long-term financial assets.
Aliko Dangote disclosed the plan while responding to a question about how widows and victims of conflict could benefit from the recently launched share offering.
The questioner, who identified himself as Dr. Ogoje Mohamed, Secretary to the State Government of “Yoruba State,” asked what governments and non-governmental organisations could do to help women affected by conflict invest in their futures through the shares.
Dangote said the foundation was working with state governments to enable widows and other vulnerable women to participate in the share offer.
“Yes, we will also, the foundation is partnering with the state governments to make sure that most of these widows and co., they’re able to also buy shares,” Dangote said.
The initiative would involve beneficiaries purchasing shares themselves, while the foundation provides an additional allocation.
According to Dangote, the minimum purchase is 10 shares. For women who participate, the foundation plans to donate another 10 shares that they can hold as savings for the future.
“And not only that there’s a number of minimum shares, which is 10. So when they buy the shares they want to purchase, the foundation will donate 10 shares for them to save for their future,” he said.
Dangote then gave the scale of the planned programme, saying it would cover 2 million women.
“And they are going to do that for 2 million women,” he said.
What the 2 million-woman plan means
If implemented as described, the foundation would donate 20 million shares in total — 10 shares for each of 2 million women.
The announcement also suggests a model in which beneficiaries are not simply recipients of financial assistance but participants in an equity-ownership programme.
The intervention is particularly notable because it was raised in the context of widows and people affected by conflict, groups that can face significant barriers to building long-term financial security.
Dangote’s response indicates that the foundation intends to work with state governments to facilitate participation, although he did not provide details during the exchange on how beneficiaries would be selected, which states would participate, when the programme would begin or the specific company whose shares would be donated.
Those implementation details will be important in determining the eventual reach and value of the initiative.
For now, the clearest elements of the announcement are the foundation’s proposed partnership with state governments, the additional 10-share allocation for participating women and the stated target of 2 million beneficiaries.
The programme would therefore combine direct participation in the share offer with an additional investment intended to be retained for beneficiaries’ future.
Dangote described the purpose of the donated shares simply: “The foundation will donate 10 shares for them to save for their future.”
