Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man, has accused Nigeria’s fuel regulators of allowing cheap imports that he says could damage local refining, cost jobs and weaken the country’s energy security.
Speaking on Sunday at his massive oil refinery on the outskirts of Lagos, Dangote said Nigeria was undermining its own industrial future by continuing to rely on imported fuel, despite being Africa’s largest oil producer.
His privately owned refinery, with a capacity of 650,000 barrels a day, was built to reduce Nigeria’s dependence on fuel imports and save billions of dollars in foreign exchange.
“We are exporting jobs”
Dangote said imported fuel was flooding the market and putting locally refined products at a disadvantage.
He warned that this approach was shifting jobs and investment overseas while Nigeria struggled to industrialise.
“We are using imports to kill domestic capacity,” Dangote told reporters. “That means jobs are created abroad, not here at home.”
He said allowing fuel imports to continue unchecked could threaten investment in local refining and put Nigeria’s long-term energy security at risk.
Clash with petroleum regulator
Dangote also called for an official investigation into Farouk Ahmed, the head of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA).
He raised concerns about how the downstream petroleum sector is being managed and pointed to allegations that some private spending linked to the regulator was higher than what could be explained by legitimate income.
Mr Ahmed did not immediately respond to requests for comment. In the past, he has accused Dangote’s refinery of trying to dominate Nigeria’s fuel market.
The regulator has also said the refinery cannot currently meet Nigeria’s daily fuel demand of about 55 million litres.
Crude supply dispute
Last month, the regulator advised President Bola Tinubu not to ban imports of refined fuel, arguing that local production was still not enough to supply the country.
Dangote strongly disagrees. He says regulators are downplaying his refinery’s capacity by focusing on fuel offtake figures rather than how much the plant can actually produce.
He also said his refinery has struggled to access enough Nigerian crude oil because rules meant to prioritise local refineries over exports are not being properly enforced.
As a result, the refinery currently imports around 100 million barrels of crude oil each year. Dangote said that figure could double once expansion plans are completed, given limited local supply.
Despite the challenges, Dangote said the refinery would continue to expand and protect its operations, describing the project as “too big to fail”.
He also repeated plans to list the company on Nigeria’s stock exchange and said dividends would be paid in US dollars, so “every Nigerian can own a part of the economy”.
Nigeria, Africa’s biggest oil producer, has relied on fuel imports for decades after its state-owned refineries largely stopped working. Dangote’s refinery was built to change that — but tensions with regulators now threaten to slow that transition.