Billionaire industrialist Aliko Dangote has accused unnamed “cabals” in the oil and gas industry of working to undermine the success of the Dangote Refinery, Africa’s largest petrochemical complex.
Speaking in Lagos at an industry forum, Dangote said these entrenched interests are doing everything possible to frustrate the refinery’s progress.
According to him, despite successfully completing the mechanical phase of the project and initiating test runs, powerful forces within and outside the country are resisting efforts to break the fuel import monopoly. “They are not sleeping. Every step we take, they try to block it. But we are determined,” he said.
The refinery, with a capacity to refine 650,000 barrels of crude oil per day, is expected to significantly reduce Nigeria’s reliance on imported fuel. Yet, delays in crude supply allocation and import licensing have reportedly hindered its commercial launch.
Dangote insisted that the refinery would begin full-scale operations soon, promising to cut fuel prices and create thousands of jobs. “We didn’t build this for politics. We built it to change the narrative of Africa,” he concluded.
