- It is sad that Africans would continue to encourage importation of things that can be produced in their countries, to the detriment of their economies.
But for the fact that the story captioned: ‘Those benefitting from massive fuel imports discouraging construction of refineries, says Dangote‘ was attributed to Africa’s richest person and Chairman of the 650,000 bpd Dangote Refinery, in the Lekki area of Lagos, I would not have regarded it as worthwhile to comment on. This is because, in Nigeria, all manner of people see themselves as specialists that are knowledgeable in anything under the sun and speak as such.
Even Dangote’s name alone too would not have swayed me to write on the matter if he had been all about his sugar, salt and other items of value that he produces.
But today, Dangote qualifies to talk authoritatively on all of these and more, and, as chairman of Dangote Refinery, he is eminently qualified to talk about refineries as well.
As a matter of fact, I have a feeling a time is coming when the man would no longer be identified with the other things that he produces except petroleum products. Indeed, I already have the feeling he must be seeing the difference between crude-related business and his other businesses by now. I remember the experience of the Late Chief Moshood Kashimawo Abiola who said after his foray into the oil sector that “publishing is sweet but oil is sweeter’! Until Abiola got a piece of the oil action, he had thought his publishing business was it, but his story and song changed when he had access to Nigeria’s oil sector. Soon, very, very soon, verily, verily I say unto you, Aliko Dangote too would be singing the same song: Dangote Salt, Dangote Sugar, Dangote Flour, etc. are all sweet, but Dangote Refinery is sweeter! There is a difference between apple and oranges. Just the same way one cannot compare sleep with death. Truth be told, oil and those other things are not the same. Your life can never be the same again once you are admitted into the exclusive crude league.
If a man of Dangote’s stature is talking about refinery, we had better listen to him. He has come a long way. Even before his entry into the oil business, he had carved a name for himself worldwide as a successful entrepreneur. I guess this would be my third or fourth piece on him in my decades of journalism practice. As far as I am concerned, he has seized opportunities provided by certain missing links in the country and I don’t know how that is a crime. Even if it is, show me a Nigerian, including our politicians who have access to cheap public funds, who has established industries that are feeding the number of mouths that Dangote is feeding. I remember Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey who once sang in praise of the Late Chief Henry Oloyede Fajemirokun, another industrialist of note, with specific reference to the number of people he employed (Ile ise e, aimoye eniyan ni won nje, ni won nmu). The same is true of Dangote today.
Whether we like it or not, he has become an authority of sort in the oil business and anyone who wants to remain relevant in the oil sector must have one or two things to learn from Dangote.
What the man said was only partially novel, though. He told us what we largely knew, at least about our own country. But sometimes what we already know gets some fillip when an authority talks about it. Dangote extended the narration beyond our borders. I had all the while thought it was only in Nigeria that we have people who are feeding fat from importation of fuel. Now I know better; that they are all over the African continent. Dangote added that they are the same reason no refinery has been built on the continent in the last 35 years. Hear him: “I’ve learned that there are other countries in Africa, all the African countries that have been trying to build refineries, they have not been able to. There has not been a refinery in the last 35 years.
“There are so many issues. I can’t count them, but there are so many. It’s not only money, political will, and also people who are benefitting from this whole stuff of importing petroleum products into Africa are actually discouraging those governments from building a refinery.”
Dangote said he would not have gone into the refinery business if he knew it was as problematic as it turned out to be. Not only that, he said some people tried to discourage him because they thought it would be still-born. “Actually, yes. If I’m going to do it now, I will do it better. Because I’ve learned from experience. But if I knew what I was going to go through, I wouldn’t have tried.”
That is Dangote talking. Nigeria should be thankful to God that the man did not allow the counsel of those who tried to discourage him to prevail. Otherwise, it is the country as a whole that would suffer. Today, many Nigerians are looking up to Dangote Refinery to bail the country out of its dependency on imported fuel. We are now reaping the fruits of the refinery with regard to diesel; the pump price has dropped significantly since Dangote Refinery began to produce it. Hopefully within the next month or so, the refinery would start producing the much-awaited petrol. When that happens, the pump price of petrol too is expected to be significantly impacted for good.
Dangote’s statement clearly returns to the front burner of national discourse why refineries in Nigeria have failed to function for several years despite the huge investments in their so-called Turn-Around Maintenance (TAM). Nigeria has four refineries yet, none of them has produced fuel in years, at least not to any significant volume. If our government officials knew the refineries were not programmed to work, why did they keep wasting the tax-payers’ money on their TAM which neither turns around nor maintain them. Corruption, pure and simple!
Even though Dangote Refinery is a personal enterprise, still, the man sure deserves commendation for his doggedness and tenacity of purpose. As had been pointed out severally, Nigeria stands to benefit a lot from the refinery. And, if again Nigeria does not know how to maximise the benefit of such a refinery in the country, let no one blame Dangote. It is left for the Nigerian government to know how to tap into the project, not in a way as to stifle private enterprise but in a way it would be a win-win situation for both Dangote and Nigeria. After all, he is also a Nigerian.
Furthermore, we must commend Dangote because we cannot tell the number of people who would have had such projects in mind but easily got discouraged and died with their dreams. We must salute his audacity, authority and his ‘influency’ (to paraphrase one of my seniors in the secondary school. Any time he said those words that had his patent alone in the assembly hall, we, the junior ones would hum after he had pronounced each of the words and shout ‘hey ey ey’ when he crowned it all with ‘influency’. It took my leaving the secondary school to know that the White man has not yet invented any such word as ‘influency’. But, as they say, ‘ki lomode mo’ (what do kids know)?
Anyway, it is for the same reason of audacity (please spare me the remaining two – authority and ‘influency’) that we must praise President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for treading where others feared to tread. The man appeared determined to make our hitherto moribund refineries work. Barely two months after his government came on board on May 29, last year, the government told the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress and Trade Union Congress that met with the president at the State House after a general strike called by Labour to protest subsidy withdrawal, that at least the Port Harcourt Refinery would start working by December of last year. The ones in Warri and Kaduna, according to him, would follow suit.
Although there had been about three shifts in the date of commencement of operations of the Port Harcourt Refinery, the expectation is that it would go into operation soon. The government must work relentlessly on this because a promise is a debt that must be paid. More than that, it is in the government’s interest too that the refineries work.
Be that as it may, Dangote’s revelation is instructive because it is not only in the oil sector that we have saboteurs in the country, nay the continent. We have also heard time and again that the country has not been able to crack its power crisis because of unscrupulous Nigerians who are into importation of generators. Dangote’s revelation has lent another perspective to the perpetual underdevelopment of the African continent. It is sad that some unscrupulous Africans would collude with foreigners to sabotage essential services like power, oil, etc. so their countries would continue to import those products over which they have comparative advantage in some cases, thereby helping to grow other economies to the detriment of their own.
The sad thing is that we only hear of these allegations, the people are never unmasked not to talk of being arrested or prosecuted. They are like the fabled ‘they’ that children mention when they steal or spoil their property. ”They have stolen my biro”.” They have stolen my book”. So, as one of our tutors asked in those days: ”who are these ‘they’? I want to similarly ask the same question: who are these ‘they’ that have been sabotaging local production of petroleum products, electricity, etc. in the country? President Tinubu should be able to name and shame them in order to break the jinx of moribund refineries in the country. That would go a long way in boosting the value of our currency because it would complement Dangote and other refineries that are springing up all over the country. We can never have too many refineries, to ensure fair competition and get value for Nigerians who would be buying the products.
