The President of Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, has raised serious concerns about the operational functionality of Nigeria’s state-owned refineries in Port Harcourt, Warri, and Kaduna, warning that they may never work again despite having consumed a staggering $18 billion in public funds.
Speaking in Lagos on Thursday during a tour of the Dangote Petroleum Refinery in Lekki with members of the Global CEO Africa from the Lagos Business School, the billionaire industrialist said the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC), which oversees the moribund refineries, has failed to make them productive.
Dangote, whose 650,000-barrel-per-day refinery is now a major force in Nigeria’s downstream oil sector, noted that his facility dedicates more than 50 per cent of its output to the production of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), far surpassing the 22 per cent historically allocated by government-owned refineries.
He also recalled the controversial reversal of his acquisition of the refineries during the late President Umar Musa Yar’Adua’s administration.
Dangote said he was compelled to return the assets just months after purchasing them under former President Olusegun Obasanjo, following allegations by NNPC officials that the facilities had been sold below market value.
He said, “The refineries that we bought before, which were owned by Nigeria, were doing about 22 per cent of PMS. We bought the refineries in January 2007. Then we had to return them to the government because there was a change of government.
“And the managing director at that time convinced Yar’Adua that the refineries would work. They said they just gave them to us as a parting gift or so. And as of today, they have spent about $18 billion on those refineries, and they are still not working. And I don’t think, and I doubt very much if they will work.
“The turnaround maintenance of the refineries was like trying to modernise a car built 40 years ago, when technology has advanced.”
“The turnaround maintenance is like you trying to modernise a car that was built 40 years ago, when technology and everything have changed. Even if you change the engine, the body will not be able to take the shock of that new technology engine,” he added.
Dangote’s remarks echoed those made by former President Olusegun Obasanjo last year concerning Nigeria’s refineries. Two of the facilities, previously declared operational by then-NNPC Group Managing Director Mele Kyari in the fourth quarter of 2024, were later shut down again.
Obasanjo had stated that the NNPC could not run the refineries, revealing that even international oil companies like Shell declined his request to manage the facilities.
He also disclosed that Nigerian investors, including Dangote, once paid $750 million to acquire the refineries, but the deal was reversed by his successor, President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.
“I ran to him, Yar’Adua, I said, ‘You know this is not right’. He said, ‘Well, NNPC said they can do it.’ I said, ‘NNPC cannot do it,’ I told my successor that ‘the refineries, from what I heard and know, will not work and when you want to sell them, you will not get anybody to buy them at $200m as scrap’. And that is the situation we are in.
“So, why do we do this kind of thing to ourselves? NNPC knew that they could not do it, but they knew they could eat and carry on with the corruption that was going on in NNPC. When people were there to do it, they put pressure. In a civilised society, those people should be in jail,” the former president said.
Once again, in January, Obasanjo stated that, “I was told not too long ago that since that time, more than $2 billion have been squandered on the refineries and they still will not work.
“If a company like Shell tells me what they told me, I will believe them. If anybody tells you now that it (the refinery) is working, why are they now with Aliko (Dangote)? And Aliko will make his refinery work; not only make it work, he will make it deliver.”
Obasanjo illustrated his point with a Yoruba proverb, likening exaggerated claims about the refineries’ performance to a farmer who planted 100 heaps of yam but falsely boasted of planting 200.
“They say that after he has harvested 100 heaps of yams, he will also have 100 heaps of lies. You know what that means,” he added.
Contractor Refuses To State Completion Date
In October 2024, the Managing Director of Maire Tecnimont S.P.A, the company awarded a $1.5 billion contract by the Nigerian government to rehabilitate the Port Harcourt Refineries refused to provide a completion date for the project, despite a formal request from human rights lawyer, Mr Femi Falana, SAN.
Falana had filed an official request under Nigeria’s Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, seeking clarity on the long-overdue refineries’ rehabilitation.
In response, Maire Tecnimont’s legal representative, Muyiwa Ogungbenro, a partner at Olajide Oyewole LLP, sent a letter to Falana, declining to reveal the information.
Ogungbenro stated that the Managing Director of Maire Tecnimont S.P.A, as part of an independent private contractor, was not obligated to disclose such information under the FOI Act.
Leave a Reply