Turning back on refinery not option, $10bn fuel subsidy loot in Nigeria had to stop – Dangote

The President of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, has said turning back on his refinery was not an option because he needed to rescue Nigeria from fuel subsidy payments that amounted to $10 billion annually.

He made this disclosure in an interview with Al Jazeera recently.

According to him, fuel subsidy payments became a serious bottleneck for the Nigerian government until his 700,000-barrel-per-day refinery came to life.

He noted that he had to fight the cartels in Nigeria’s oil sector “hard” to succeed.

Dangote said that despite the victory recorded by the refinery, the cartels are still fighting.

“Turning back was not an option, they were looting $10 billion every year because it was a subsidy. People were just writing numbers, the government was busy paying and sweating, but we came and disrupted everything.

“We fought them hard, they saw that we had succeeded, so now things have calmed down. Of course, we still have little flies that will come and try to disturb us,” he stated.

His comments come as the Dangote Refinery, on September 14, opened its Initial Public Offering (IPO) at N525 per share on the Nigerian Exchange Limited, NGX.