Shittu Ibrahim ekes out a living for his two wives and 11 children by selling tomatoes he grows to passersby along a highway that runs through the Kadawa Valley near Kano, the biggest city in northern Nigeria. With no way to find new customers, about two-thirds of his crop rots. Now the country’s central bank and Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, have teamed up to establish a $25-million tomato-paste factory that could boost income for Ibrahim and the 8,000 farmers who live in the valley. “We are doing this only to feed, as you can see, I can’t afford the luxuries of life,” the stocky 56-year-old said as he sat on a stool on June 6 outside his mud-walled house, which is surrounded by...
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