How Africa’s Youngest Billionaire Mohammed Dewji Got Kidnapped
How African’s Youngest Billionaire Mohammed Dewji Got Kidnapped. Mohammed Dewji, who is widely considered to be Africa’s youngest billionaire, was kidnapped and held captive for 10 days in 0ctober 2018. Dewji was kidnapped by armed men outside the hotel gym where he was staying. “I drove inside, there was a car behind me so I thought maybe some guys were coming to the gym and I turned around and all of a sudden people just started shooting up in the air, so I thought these guys wanted my car, I slept on the floor and they picked me up and put me in the car, it was a terrible experience.” Dewji explained in an interview with Billionaire Tomorrow.
Dewji told the Billionaire Tomorrow that he asked his kidnappers to shoot him as he found the ordeal to be unbearable, he says the whole experience made him feel like he was ready to die. “I was blindfolded and there were times they kept on threatening me with guns to my head and five days, six days into it I was thinking I was losing my eye sight,” Dewji narrated. “The kidnapper was like ‘I’m going to shoot you’ and I was like ‘you can shoot me and kill me’, because I was losing it. You get disorientated, you’re tired, because it’s a form of torture.” he continued.
After 10 days the young billionaire was released from captive and was dropped off in the fields that are near the same hotel where he was kidnapped. The kidnappers did not make any ransom demands and they let Dewji go without revealing the reason why they targeted Dewji. Dewji says the experience has also intensified his appetite to give back and he says he will invest up to $400m in agriculture in Tanzania, not for profit but to make an impact.
Mohammed Dewji is a businessman, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and former politician. He serves as the President of MeTL Group, a Tanzanian conglomerate founded by his father in the 1970s where he is the majority owner of the business. Mohammed is single-handedly responsible for increasing MeTL’s revenues from $30 million to over $1.6 billion between 1999 and 2017.
In 2019, Forbes magazine listed him as the 14th richest person in Africa, with an estimated net worth of US$1.9 billion, also noted as the youngest billionaire on the content. Mohammed was also the first Tanzanian billionaire on the cover of Forbes Africa magazine in 2013.
“I thank Allah that I have returned home safely. I thank all my fellow Tanzanians and everyone around the world for their prayers. I thank the authorities of Tanzania, including the Police Force for working for my safe return,” said Dewji in a tweet after he was released.
