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Dangote More Powerful Than President Jonathan in Forbes Ranking

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Alhaji Aliko Dangote, self-made business magnate,
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Aliko Dangote, founder, Dangote group and the richest man in Africa has been named by Forbes magazine as the 64th most powerful person in the world.

The 56-year old Kano born multibillionaire is the only African on the first 70 meaning he is more powerful than all African heads of state, including Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan.

Dangote with interests in every profitable pie built his fortunes from diversified interests in cement, sugar, flour, salt, petrochemicals, oil and gas.

He along with Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle rated number 58 is the latest billionaire-entrepreneurs to join the list alongside 27 CEOs.

But who is the most powerful? Okay wait!: it is Vladimir Putin , Russian President who climbed one spot ahead of U.S. President Barack Obama, who held the title in 2012.

The Most Powerful People in the World list is an annual snapshot of the heads of state, financiers, philanthropists and entrepreneurs who truly rule the world.

It represents the collective wisdom of top FORBES editors, who consider hundreds of nominees before ranking the planet’s top 72 power-brokers – one for every 100 million people on Earth — based on their scope of influence and their financial resources relative to their peers. (See full methodology here).

This year’s list features 17 heads of state who run nations with a combined GDP of some $48 trillion — including the three most powerful people, Putin, Obama and Xi Jinping, the general secretary of the Communist Party of China. The 27 CEOs and chairs control over $3 trillion in annual revenues, and 12 are entrepreneurs, including new billionaires on the list, Nigeria’s Aliko Dangote (No. 64), founder of Dangote Group, and Oracle’s Larry Ellison (No. 58). Speaking of, this year’s class has 28 billionaires valued in excess of $564 billion.

Here, a quick peek at the Most Powerful People in the World 2013:

Newcomers: Among the 13 newcomers are Pope Francis (No. 4), Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-Hee (No. 41), Volkswagen’s Martin Winterkorn (No. 49), South Korean President Park Geun-hye (No. 52), IBM CEO Virginia Rometty (No. 56), and Janet Yellen (No. 72), nominated by President Obama as the next leader of the U.S. Federal Reserve. Rosneft CEO and Putin confidant Igor Sechin (No. 60) and Jill Abramson (No. 68), the executive editor of the New York Times, make a return appearance after dropping of the list in years past.

He’s Not No. 1: This is the first year that Putin carries the crown. Obama has been on the top of the list for every year with the exception of 2010, when Hu Jintao, the former political and military leader of China, was No. 1.

Women Moving Up In Numbers: This year there are nine women on the list, representing 12% of the world’s most powerful — in stark contrast to being 50% of the world’s population. Both 2011 and 2012 featured six women leaders, and the inaugural list from 2009 included only 3 — or just 4.4%. Recently elected Park of South Korea joins the other female heads of state German Chancellor Angela Merkel No.5), Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff (No. 20)and de facto head of India Sonia Gandhi (No. 21). Two of the world’s most important NGO’s are run by women: Christine Lagarde (No. 35) leads the IMF and Margaret Chan (No. 59) steers the World Health Organization.

Billionaires: Worth a cumulative $564 billion. Sure they’re rich but many of these billionaires deserve special attention for their philanthropic work, including Warren Buffett (No. 13), Michael Bloomberg (No. 29), Li Ka-shing (No. 30), Charles and David Koch (No. 31), and Mohammed Ibrahim (No. 71).

Entrepreneurs Represent: There are 12 in total. As expected, many are headquartered on the West Coast: Google’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin (No. 17), Mark Zuckerberg (No. 24), Elon Musk (No. 47), Ellison and Reid Hoffman (No. 65). Global entrepreneurial spirit spans from Japan’s Masayoshi Son (No. 45) and China’s Robin Li (No. 61) to Africa’s Dangote and Ibrahim.


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FG Unveils AI Public Services Platform

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Federal government has launched GovGuideNigeria, an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered digital platform designed to streamline access to public service information through WhatsApp and the web.

The platform consolidates information from more than 35 federal ministries and over 60 government agencies, marking a significant step in Nigeria’s drive to expand AI-enabled public infrastructure and digital government services.

According to Bosun Tijani, Nigeria’s minister of communications, innovation and digital economy, the initiative aims to simplify interactions with government services, particularly for underserved communities that often face challenges navigating complex public-sector systems.

Developed in collaboration with the National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Meta, and Publica AI, GovGuideNigeria uses conversational AI to provide real-time responses via WhatsApp and a web interface in English, Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba.

Sade Dada, head of public policy at Meta, said the multilingual rollout highlights the growing use of natural language processing within African public institutions to improve digital inclusion and broaden access to services.

Ignatius Willie, chief executive of Publica AI, said the platform demonstrates how Africa’s next generation of digital public infrastructure can be developed locally using African languages.

GovGuideNigeria is intended to address longstanding challenges in Nigeria’s public information system, where citizens often struggle to access reliable guidance because of fragmented government websites, poor communication channels and the expense of travelling to physical offices.

Through AI-driven automation, users can obtain information on immigration procedures, documentation requirements, public programmes and agency-specific services through chat-based interactions.

The launch also reflects Nigeria’s broader ambition to integrate AI into digital governance, while strengthening partnerships between government agencies, global technology companies and local AI startups to modernise public service delivery.


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Elon Musk to Become First World’s Trillionaire with SpaceX Historic IPO

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Elon Musk is poised to become the world’s first trillionaire after  SpaceX, his company, confirmed plans to go public.

Elon Musk to Become First World’s Trillionaire with SpaceX Historic IPO

Elon Musk

Because Musk owns the majority of the shares, it could push his net worth over the trillion dollar mark.

The entrepreneur is known for his leadership of Tesla, SpaceX, X, and xAI.

Musk has been the wealthiest person in the world since 2025; as of May 2026, Forbes estimates his net worth to be $788 billion.

SpaceX has filed for a blockbuster public listing in the United States, paving the way for what could become the largest stock market debut in Wall Street history.

The company, formally known as Space Exploration Technologies, announced plans to begin trading under the ticker symbol “SPCX” as early as next month.

The listing values SpaceX at about $1.25 trillion, with Musk’s majority ownership potentially worth more than $600 billion alone.

Combined with his existing holdings in companies including Tesla, the IPO could push Musk’s personal wealth above the $1 trillion mark.

The long-awaited filing also offered investors a rare look into SpaceX’s finances.

The company reported $18.6 billion in revenue last year but recorded a net loss of $4.9 billion. In the first quarter of this year, SpaceX generated $4.7 billion in sales while posting a $4.3 billion net loss.

Financial disclosures showed the company holds $102 billion in assets, including rockets, launch infrastructure and satellite systems, while carrying debts totalling $60.5 billion.

Despite the losses, analysts suggested investors were unlikely to be deterred given SpaceX’s dominance in commercial space launches and satellite internet services.

Ruth Foxe-Blader, managing partner at Citrine Venture Partners, described the planned flotation as “extremely exciting.”

“SpaceX is just an absolutely sprawling, enormous project with so many different selling points, and so many points that really point to the future,” she said.

SpaceX operates the Starlink satellite internet network and also owns Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI.

The IPO filing revealed that xAI recently reached a major commercial agreement with rival AI company Anthropic, maker of the Claude chatbot.

Under the arrangement, Anthropic will reportedly pay $15 billion annually to access data centre infrastructure linked to xAI operations in the American South.

The filing also disclosed that SpaceX expects to incur more than half a billion dollars in legal costs from multiple ongoing lawsuits and regulatory disputes.

Among the cases listed were claims alleging that xAI’s chatbot Grok had been used to create sexualised deepfakes of women and girls, alongside patent infringement disputes, music copyright claims, data breach allegations and investigations into compliance with European Union content moderation rules.

Musk has previously said he plans to dissolve xAI as a standalone company and pursue his AI ambitions directly under SpaceX.

The filing came shortly after Musk lost a high-profile legal battle against OpenAI and its chief executive Sam Altman.

Musk had accused OpenAI of abandoning its non-profit mission after shifting towards a commercial model, but a jury dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that he had waited too long to bring the claims.


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Moniepoint Boosts UK Payments Security

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African financial services platform Moniepoint has partnered with open banking software-as-a-service provider tell.money to deploy a transaction security system in the UK market.

The companies said the partnership will allow Moniepoint to implement Confirmation of Payee, an account name-checking service designed to verify recipient details before payments are processed.

The integration will be rolled out through Monieworld, Moniepoint’s UK remittance subsidiary, as part of the company’s broader European expansion strategy.

Tell.money will provide the underlying verification technology, which the companies said is intended to reduce misdirected payments and help protect users against cross-border fraud.

Ravi Jakhodia, CEO of Monieworld, said: “Our goal with Monieworld is to build financial services for Africans in the diaspora.”

He added that tell.money was selected because it manages compliance and accreditation requirements, allowing the fintech company to focus on customer service.

Moniepoint is entering a competitive UK-to-Africa remittance market that includes established providers such as Wise, WorldRemit and Remitly, as well as African fintech firms including Flutterwave’s Send App.

According to data from the World Bank’s KNOMAD programme, remittance flows to low- and middle-income countries are estimated at about $620 billion annually, with digital -first platforms capturing increasing market share through open banking integrations and automated compliance systems.

The rollout reflects a broader trend of African fintech firms expanding into developed markets by adopting local regulatory and open banking standards.

Industry analysts expect diaspora-focused platforms to evolve beyond money transfers into services such as multi-currency banking, credit and investment products.


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