Africa's richest man Aliko Dangote has turned his relentlessness, connections and entrepreneurial bets on the rise of Africa into a fortune estimated at about $22 billion, Wall Street Journal said.

According to the report, most of Dangote's fortune comes from his controlling stake in a conglomerate of cement, sugar, salt and noddle factories sprawled across 16 countries. Profits in three publicly-traded companies he controls hit $1 billion in the first nine months of 2013, up 43% from a year earlier, the report said.

Dangote now has a plan to quintuple his wealth and become one of the five richest people in the world. The African investor will spend $9 billion to build the largest privately owned refinery in Nigeria, WSJ said.

Nigeria produces more oil than any other African country. But it imports most of the motor fuel and diesel it uses because the country's existing refineries are dilapidated and inefficient, the report said.

Within about two years, the new refinery could start piping in crude from roughly 7 miles offshore. Dangote's planned refinery will be located in a stretch of swampy shoreline outside the Nigerian city of Lagos, WSJ said.     

Competing against four government-managed refineries that run at barely 20% of their capacity, Dangote would double Nigeria's maximum refinery output, the report said.