Africa’s richest person and founder of the Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, yesterday disclosed that he had already offset about $2.4 billion of the $5.5 billion he borrowed to build his $19 billion refinery located near Lagos.
Speaking at the Afreximbank Annual Meetings (AAN) and Afro-Caribbean Trade & Investment Forum in Nassau, The Bahamas, the billionaire businessman further stated that several entities, both local and foreign, did everything to sabotage the 650,000 barrels per day facility.
He Stressed that many persons thought that the project was going to fail, he lauded Afreximbank and Nigeria’s Access Bank for supporting the project, noting that the vision would have died without them. He noted that without banks like African Finance Corporation (AFC), AfreximBank and others, it would be difficult to industrialise the African continent because they are the financial institutions that understand the challenges and the issues peculiar to the continent. Without mentioning names, the businessman stated that foreign banks are not interested in helping Africa grow, explaining that indeed some of them clandestinely attempted to push the company into loan default during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Describing the situation as very scary, he stated if he had raised the idea of international project financing with some of them, the international banks would have shut it down because they would “Ask for my great-grandmother’s certificate of birth.” On whether he was receiving enough crude oil as feedstock for his refinery from the IOCs, Dangote said, “In a system where for 35 years people are used to counting good money, and all of a sudden they see that the days of counting that money have come to an end, you don’t expect them to pray for you. Of course, you expect them to fight back.” Stressing that he knew there would always be a pushback, Dangote pointed out that what he did not envisage was that it would be so vicious “Well, I knew that there would be a fight. But I didn’t know that the mafia in oil, they are stronger than the mafia in drugs. I can tell you that. Yes, it’s a fact,” he mentioned, stressing that the local and foreign mafia tried several times to sabotage the refinery from coming to fruition.
Dangote himself as someone who has fought all his life, Dangote posited that the mafias ‘tried all sorts’ to stop him. “But I’m a person that has been fighting all my life. You know, so I think it’s part of my life to fight,” he stated. Dangote said that although the fight was still on, he was very sure he would end up winning “Because the population and the government will be on our side.”
