A former Minister of Agriculture, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, yesterday, backed Dangote Petroleum Refinery Limited, insisting that the current dispute between the President of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, and handlers of the local oil sector is a bad advertisement for the country.
This comes as the Group Chief Executive Officer of NNPCL, Mele Kyari, denied allegations that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) employees operate a blending plant in Malta.
Stressing that the crisis in the country’s oil and gas industry is a needless odium for Nigeria at a time the country should be building partnerships for rapid development, Adesina expressed concerns over recent criticisms directed at Dangote Group, describing the situation as both shocking and damaging to Nigeria’s reputation.
In a statement shared with The Guardian, Adesina addressed the complexity and risk involved in large-scale investments such as the Dangote Refinery, emphasising that such ventures are not only costly but also fraught with challenges, particularly in Nigeria’s unpredictable economic environment.
“To manufacture is extremely expensive and risky. This is even more so in Nigeria, given the very challenging business and economic environment, fraught with policy uncertainties and policy reversals, and where the self-defeating default mode of simply importing it is always so easily rationalised and chorused to solve any problem,” he said.
Adesina, the President of the African Development Bank (AfDB) Group, also questioned the notion of competition in the context of Dangote’s refinery, arguing that it is unfair to expect a major industrial project to compete with imported petroleum products.
He criticised the tendency to dismiss local industries and highlighted the broader benefits of such investments, including domestic supply security, job creation, and economic stabilisation.
Adesina warned against undermining local industries, saying disparaging Nigeria’s largest investor could deter future investments. He called for a more supportive approach to local industrialisation, stressing that investment in Nigeria should be encouraged rather than diminished.
Kyari, while reacting to allegations about the said Malta refinery, emphasised in a post on his X account that he is unaware of any NNPCL employee involved in such activities.
Kyari, however, stressed that a blending plant in Malta does not affect NNPCL’s operations and assured that any employee found involved in such activities would be subject to sanctions and reported to relevant security agencies due to the serious implications for national energy security.
