Aliko Dangote doubts Nigeria’s refineries will ever work again despite $18 billion spent on repairs.
He and Obasanjo say mismanagement and outdated systems make revival efforts a lost cause.
Aliko Dangote, President of the Dangote Group, has expressed skepticism over the future of Nigeria’s state-owned refineries, saying they may never become operational again despite the government’s massive investments in their rehabilitation.
Speaking during a visit by members of Global CEO Africa to the Dangote Refinery, the billionaire industrialist revealed that the 650,000-barrels-per-day plant he built was conceived after the late President Umaru Musa Yar’adua’s administration rejected his proposal to purchase the government-owned refineries.
Dangote recalled that he and other investors had successfully acquired the refineries in 2007 under the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo. However, the sale was reversed following a change in government.
“We bought the refineries in January 2007 when they were only producing 22% of their petrol capacity. But the new government at the time canceled the transaction, promising to fix them. Nearly $18 billion later, they still don’t work. I doubt they ever will,” Dangote said.
He compared the situation to trying to upgrade a car that’s four decades old. “You can change the engine, but the body can’t cope. Technology has moved on,” he said.
Former President Obasanjo, who approved the initial sale, has echoed similar sentiments in the past. According to him, Dangote and the group of investors paid $750 million for the refineries before the deal was overturned by Yar’adua’s government.
Obasanjo said he had advised Yar’adua that the refineries were beyond saving. “I told him NNPC couldn’t fix them, but he went ahead anyway. Today, even as scrap, they might not fetch up to $200 million,” he remarked.
He placed the blame squarely on the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC), accusing the agency of deliberately mismanaging the refineries while enabling corrupt practices.
“In any civilized nation, people would be in jail for this,” Obasanjo stated.
Earlier this year, Obasanjo also noted that more than $2 billion had been sunk into the refineries since the cancelled salewith no tangible outcome to show for it.
