· The feud persists between Nigeria’s billionaire magnates
Discord rattles the beams and eaves of industry and high society as Abdulsamad Rabiu and Aliko Dangote engage in a bitter feud. The chairmen of BUA and Dangote Group respectively, disrupt the peace of industry, leaving it shaken and distraught like a guava tree caught in the path of a thunderstorm.
It is an open secret that the billionaire magnates do not see eye to eye; so bitter is their feud that it has endured over the years, leaving their mutual friends and associates unhappy and at their wits end.
Their business interests have pitted them against each other for years and despite speculations that their feud may be over soon, following Samad’s surprise appearance at Dangote’s 60th birthday party, the two men are still bitter enemies.
It would be recalled that Samad came to Dangote’s 60th party organized for him by Femi Otedola thus exciting hope among their mutual friends and associates that the war between them had ended. But their hope was short-lived as both men have resumed their feud.
Their enduring warfare remains a conundrum to all and sundry given the fact that both men are Hausas; both of them are industrialists, and they both contribute to the Nigerian economy in no small measure.
The genesis of their feud has been traced to the ex-president, Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration, which allegedly favoured Dangote to the detriment of his major rivals and competitors in the business sector.
Samad, the Executive Chairman of BUA Group, allegedly wrote a petition to President Buhari, detailing how policies of successive governments in the last two decades have “unduly” favoured his kinsman.
While both men have kept mum over their warfare, pundits aver that they should sheathe their swords and caution their apologists lest they escalate the tensions between them and aggravate their feud to a scandalous war in mainstream media and on the social media.
