Energy expert, Kelvin Emmanuel, has said the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC), not the Dangote Refinery, should be held responsible for the country’s persistent fuel distribution crisis.
In an interview with ARISE News on Tuesday, Emmanuel, who is the co-founder of Dairy Hills, argued that Aliko Dangote is merely responding to decades of government and regulatory failure in the downstream oil sector—failures he said NNPC has been unable or unwilling to fix for over 25 years.
“Dangote is not a regulator. He’s a player in the market. The real issue is that NNPC and its regulatory partners have allowed the system to collapse,” Emmanuel said.
He noted that while some have criticised the Dangote Refinery’s decision to rely heavily on trucks for petrol distribution—a move seen by many as worsening Nigeria’s deteriorating road network—the real problem is the absence of functional alternatives such as railways and barges.
“Rail infrastructure is the government’s responsibility, not Dangote’s,” he said. “Rail is on the exclusive legislative list. The private sector cannot touch it unless the government opens access. Dangote is simply operating within the constraints handed to him by the state.”
The fuel distribution network in Nigeria has long been fraught with inefficiencies, from poor pipeline systems to mismanaged subsidies and unpaid claims. Emmanuel pointed out that NNPC and the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) owe independent marketers N1.8 billion in unpaid bridging claims—a backlog that has disrupted fuel availability across several parts of the country.
He also highlighted how years of policy inconsistency and regulatory loopholes have allowed some fuel marketers to profit through dubious arbitrage opportunities, rather than genuine competition.
“What Nigerians don’t understand is that the marketers were not making money from selling petrol at N5 to N15 margins. They were exploiting loopholes by importing products below quality standards, which Dangote cannot do under the new Petroleum Industry Act,” he said.
According to Emmanuel, Dangote’s move to deploy thousands of compressed natural gas (CNG)-powered trucks is a stopgap measure, not an ideal solution. “He’s covering the storage, transportation, and delivery costs because there’s no working infrastructure. If NNPC had done its job, this wouldn’t be necessary.”
Emmanuel stressed that only a comprehensive overhaul of Nigeria’s oil and gas logistics—led by government investment and reform—would end the crisis.
“Dangote has stepped in where NNPC failed. That’s the truth,” he said. “But unless regulators fix the system, one refinery alone won’t solve Nigeria’s fuel problems.”
The Dangote Refinery, now in full operation, is Africa’s largest single-train refinery and has begun nationwide distribution of petrol and diesel.
