Dangote: The patriot, pan Africanist

Guest Columnist By Abdu Labaran Malumfashi

The recent resolution of the face off between Alhaji Aliko Dangote and the oil cartels in Nigeria said to be at the instance of the Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu government, is a pleasing development to all patriotic citizens. The intervention ended in favour of the black race’s richest person on earth.

The oil cartels, led by a the quartet of ExxonMobil, Chevron Nigeria and Shell Nigeria had ganged up against the famed President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Dangote Group of companies, aided by their Nigerian lackeys, who were into their nefarious shenanigans for the money they could get.

And Alhaji Aliyu Dangote should reconsider his offer to sell the refinery he doggedly built, to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), as he recently threatened to do. We know some unpatriotic people, including Nigerians, are leaving nothing to chance to frustrate him.

Most Nigerian are with the Nigeria’s richest man because the refinery under him would continue to serve their interest, not the interest of the few under the NNPC. The Nigerian oil giant would only serve the interest of those who would rather the country burnt if they were going to make money out of it.

Unpatriotic people like the head of a leading government agency under the NNPC, who tried to discourage and intimidate Alhaji Aliyu Dangote for their selfish, not country’s interest, are doomed to fail by the grace of God. The agency’s head had claimed that the “Dangote Refinery is still in the pre-commissioning stage and has not been licensed yet”.

A callous statement and attempt to frustrate Dangote and any other business person who wants to invest in the building of a new refinery.

Such people who falsely claimed the  ‘inferiority of the products of the (Dangote) refinery’ deserve to be shown the gate from the high office that gave them the chance to work against the interest of the country. Their type always work for themselves if they could make money in the process. The money gluttons always do.

For them, they would rather gain by cooperating, conniving, supporting with the OIC, to continue to rape the country and deny it the benefits of its hydro carbon riches, for their selfish interest.

Laboratory analyses have shown that the sulphur content in the imported petroleum products is between 1,800 ppm to 2,000 ppm to Dangote petroleum’s 87.6 ppm, a proof that the later (Dangote petroleum) is by far superior to the former (imported) brand. This is contrary to what the evil members of the Nigerian oil cartel had claimed in a false claim by their Nigerian stooges.

It could be recalled that there were times when the imported petroleum products stunk like a two-day old carcass of a skunk in a public waste bin. Yet, those who worship money claimed that the Dangote refinery produced petroleum products were not up to standard. Whose standard, if one may ask?

We are talking about some people in privileged positions who are not happy with the realisation of the Dangote single stream refinery, the biggest in the world, which has the capacity to produce 650,000 barrels per day when it is fully operational. It would be one mighty leap forward for majority of Nigerians who can hardly afford to buy petrol, and which could sometimes be even harder to get even with the money.

Most of the times, the hardship at the fuel stations is deliberately caused by greedy Shylocks and their errand boys in order to accumulate more money in a society that is mostly defined by many lacks, including the lack of the constant ability to feed.

The 67-year old billionaire business mogul recently told newsmen angrily that he was ready to sell the refinery to NNPC. He said, “They have labelled me a monopolist. That’s an incorrect and unfair allegation, but it’s OK. If they buy me out, at least, their so-called monopolist would be out of the way.”

But monopolists the world over do not encourage others to compete with them. They just narrow the playing field for themselves alone. That has never been Alhaji Aliko Dangote’s style of doing business, and his ‘competitors’ could attest to that fact any time.

The Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the BUA group of companies, Alhaji AbdusSamadu Rabi’u would also complete his modern single stream refinery with a capacity of 200,000  barrels per day. The BUA refinery is also being built in Lagos and would start production sometime next year (2025). The BUA strong man, who is also a US dollar billionaire, is also into the manufacture and production of all the other products that the Dangote group president and CEO had started. This further punctured the deliberately false claim made by the supporters of the OIC that Alhaji Dangote was a monopolist.

When he started the cement business, there was only the French company, Lafarge Cement in the Nigerian market. But along the lines, he encouraged more of his monied compatriots to enter the cement business, he believed that the market was vast enough to accommodate more investors in the field.

Some people could be very disingenuous in their thinking when it comes to money matters. They ‘think’ with their pockets rather than their brains, which appears to be little compared to their blind greed for worldly riches.

At the moment, in addition to Lafarge and Dangote Cement companies in the Nigerian market, there are BUA Cement, Ibex Cement, the United Cement Company of Nigeria (WAPCO) and many others, the big and the not so big companies, all trying to get their share of the vast market here and abroad.

Another new cement company would very shortly enter the market in a large way due to the persistent encouragement of Alhaji Aliko Dangote and a few others. The new player is the ‘Mangal Cement Company’, owned by the Katsina business magnet, Alhaji Dahiru Bara’u Mangal. If this is monopoly, then more of it is needed in Nigeria, so that in the not too distant a future, the frontiers of the country’s general development would be tremendously expanded.

Alhaji Aliko Dangote has also impacted positively in his home state and elsewhere where the roots of some of his businesses stood on a firm and fertile foundation. In his home state of Kano, the billionaire has built and is maintaining a university and many institutions of learning at no cost to the state’s taxpayers.

But the questions begging for answer are, why has the the Nigerian oil company not been able to maintain the four refineries in Port Harcourt in Rivers state, Kaduna in Kaduna state, Warri in Delta state and Egbin in Lagos state, which have been in its control over the years and where are the many so called modular refineries by individual investors said to be on the way? Should not the corporation be one happy entity with the entrance of the Dangote refinery, given that it would greatly lessen its responsibility to the Nigerian oil consumers?

Even without saying it, at the age of 67, Alhaji Aliko Dangote could not have built the giant refinery for anything other than national interest, going by his patriotic and pan-Africa statements and stance over the years.

Shortly after the completion, but before the test run of his mega refinery, he told the Dubai based anchor and correspondent of the Cable Network News (CNN), Mrs. Eleni Gioko that “African themselves have to develop the continent as no foreign investor or foreigner is coming to do it for them”. He spoke to her at the site of the complex in Lagos, the city where the land on which the multi purpose refinery was built was purchased from the Lagos state government at 100,000 US dollars.

But instead of celebrating and commending him for the successful completion of the project, which saw him spending 20 US billion dollars in the nine years it took him to build, some selfish Nigerians, in cohort with their white paymasters, are trying their evil worst to run him down.

Not only would his success translate into a relief for the majority of Nigerians who waste their time in petrol queues, it would also mean a mighty move forward for the nation in so many ways of development. These may include the exportation of petroleum products instead of importing them, thereby saving of foreign exchange demand and the arrest of the free fall of the national currency, the Naira. It would also mean a reversal of fortune for the soaring the US dollar in Nigeria, and the sacking of some of some NNPC staff, who would be rendered redundant.

The Dangotes of this world need the support and encouragement of all citizens, not the criticism, discouragement and let down of the oil cartels, helped, aided and abetted by some greedy locals whose only passion in life is to make money, regardless of how. May God help us from the evil machinations of, and guide us against, such people.

Malam Malumfashi wrote from Katsina.