Lagos, Nigeria – Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, has appointed MTN Group chief executive officer Ralph Mupita to the board of Dangote Fertiliser Limited as the company advances plans to expand operations and pursue a stock market listing in Nigeria.
The appointment was confirmed by Dangote Fertiliser managing director Vishwajit Sinha in an emailed response to questions, according to reports by Bloomberg published by Nigerian media on Wednesday. The move comes as the company prepares for a potential listing on the Nigerian Exchange, a step that would open the business to public market investors.
Dangote Fertiliser is one of the flagship industrial projects developed by Dangote Industries to strengthen Africa’s agricultural value chain and attract long term institutional capital. Bringing Mupita onto the board adds an executive with experience across telecommunications, finance and corporate governance at a time when investors closely examine leadership capacity alongside output and earnings.
Mupita is widely known in Nigeria for leading MTN Nigeria’s listing on the Nigerian Exchange in 2019, an event regarded as a turning point for the country’s capital markets. Since that listing, MTN Nigeria’s revenue has more than quadrupled, and the company has grown into one of the exchange’s most valuable stocks, with an estimated market value of about 8.6 billion dollars.
At MTN Group, Mupita has headed the continent’s largest wireless carrier by subscriber numbers for more than five years. He joined the group in 2017 as chief financial officer before taking over as chief executive, bringing an engineering background to a business that often builds its own infrastructure to support growth.
Dangote Fertiliser operates at a scale rarely matched by African industrial projects. The company produces around three million metric tonnes of granulated urea annually from its 2.5 billion dollar facility in Lagos. Dangote has said the ambition is to become the world’s largest fertiliser producer by 2028. Expansion plans include increasing capacity at the Lagos plant and starting construction of a new facility in Ethiopia this year.
The developments come amid rising demand for agricultural inputs across Africa as population growth places pressure on food systems. Development financiers and analysts have repeatedly identified fertiliser availability and pricing as major constraints on crop yields, particularly for smallholder farmers who struggle to access inputs when needed.
In Nigeria, urea production has also taken on policy and trade importance. Increased local supply can reduce reliance on imports and help stabilise domestic prices, while exports generate foreign currency at a time when businesses are closely watching the naira and access to dollars for equipment and raw materials.
While board appointments rarely draw widespread attention, they can influence investor confidence when companies prepare for public listings. Investors typically look for directors with experience in listings, disclosure standards and stakeholder engagement, especially in sectors exposed to regulatory and logistical pressures.
Dangote has previously said the group is also preparing to list its refinery business, with planned offerings aimed at raising capital, broadening ownership and improving transparency. If the fertiliser listing proceeds, it is expected to rank among the most closely watched initial public offerings in Nigeria, particularly for global investors seeking exposure to African manufacturing beyond oil and gas.
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