Presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) in the 2023 general elections, Dumebi Kachikwu, has said that there is no sabotage against the Dangote Refinery but rather, Aliko Dangote has just stepped into an industry where there are bigger players, different from his when he had a monopoly or was part of a duopoly in Nigeria’s food and cement sectors.
He said this in an interview with ARISE NEWS on Tuesday, while responding to the allegations of sabotage against the Dangote Refinery, as he said that since the issue between the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and Dangote Refinery came into the public sphere, it has been blown out of proportion.
Giving his personal take on the matter, Kachikwu said, “Dangote has operated in a space for the longest time in the food sector where he’s akin to being a monopoly. He’s operated in the cement sector where he’s probably part of a duopoly. This is the first time Dangote is entering waters where you have mega players, probably bigger than his company is, and he cannot understand that Dangote the superstar in food production or in cement production is not a superstar in oil and gas where you have the likes of Shell, Mobil and the rest. So, I think that that’s one of the issues that is at play here.”
Addressing the allegations of conspiracy against the Dangote Refinery, he said, “I don’t believe that it’s in the government’s interest, in a country that is suffering a foreign exchange crisis, to frustrate a Dangote Refinery when it’s in their interest to have domestic production so we don’t spend all the dollars we’re spending every month to import oil. So, I don’t understand why anyone will think that.
“And again, when people have made allegations that people have conspired to frustrate Dangote Refinery – let me ask a question. If all the refineries in the world, all refineries in the world, barring none, are all importing oil from different parts of the world, why will anyone want to frustrate a refinery in Nigeria who is going to be like the other players who can import oil from any part of the world? It doesn’t make any sense to me. So, I believe that the argument is emotive.
“We do understand that our government has failures – serious systemic failures, serious operational failures – but we don’t have to bring that into every conversation, because in this conversation, that’s not what the issue is, especially when the government has come, brought out figures to say this is what we allocated to the different refineries, and if we do understand that the government has forward sold a lot of oil that they should have at this moment because their refineries were not working, that’s the conversation.”
He then added, “I don’t think we are on the right path when we make this whole issue about government, NUPRC, NNPC not giving Dangote enough crude oil. I believe that because this matter got into the public space, sentiments entered this matter, and it’s being blown out of proportion. When you have a refinery as large as Dangote’s refinery, because when it’s fully on stream, that’s going to be the 7th largest refinery in the world, you have to have planned or forecasted properly, you have to had, four years before, have your contracts in place.”
Kachikwu then spoke on Dangote Refinery complaining about not receiving the 29 million barrels of oil that the NUPRC claimed to have allocated to the refinery, saying, “We hear that something was promised Dangote. In the oil and gas sector, you don’t work with promises, you work with contracts. Does Dangote have contracts with anybody for that product? If he does have a contract, and if they failed to meet their contractual obligations, Dangote can head to court. I suspect that there might not be any contract.”
Ozioma Samuel-Ugwuezi
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