Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, has voiced strong doubts about the future of Nigeria’s four refineries, managed by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), saying they may never work again.
The refineries in Port Harcourt, Warri, and Kaduna, with a combined production capacity of 445,000 bpd, have gulped no less than $18 billion, but are still in a comatose state.
In May 2025, the Port Harcourt refinery was shut down again after $1.5 billion had been spent on upgrades, a move many see as mere window dressing, not a genuine revival.
Speaking in Lagos on Thursday to a group of executives who had toured his 650,000-capacity private refinery in Lekki, Dangote recalled how he initially acquired the Nigerian refineries under President Olusegun Obasanjo administration and had to return them a few months after the late President Umar Yar’adua took office because the NNPC leadership convinced him that Obasanjo undersold the facility and that they could revive the facilities.
In Dangote’s words:
“The refineries that we bought before, which were owned by Nigeria, were doing about 22 per cent of PMS. We bought the refineries in January 2007. Then we had to return them to the government because there was a change of government.
“And the managing director at that time convinced Yar’adua that the refineries would work. They said they just gave them to us as a parting gift or so. And as of today, they have spent about $18bn on those refineries, and they are still not working. And I don’t think, and I doubt very much if they will work.
“(The turnaround maintenance) is like you trying to modernise a car that was built 40 years ago, when technology and everything have changed. Even if you change the engine, the body will not be able to take the shock of that new technology engine.”
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Obasanjo’s side of the story
In 2024, Obasanjo had shed light on how he visited Yar’adua to warn him about his decision to take the Nigerian refineries back from Dangote.
Obasanjo said NNPC knew it couldn’t run the refineries because even Shell, an international oil company, refused to operate the facilities when he offered them to do it.
The former president added that Dangote and some other Nigerians offered $750 million to take over the refineries, but Yar’Adua rescinded the deal.
In Obasanjo’s words:
“I ran to him (Yar’Adua), I said, ‘You know this is not right’. He said, ‘Well, NNPC said they can do it.’ I said, ‘NNPC cannot do it,’ I told my successor that ‘the refineries, from what I heard and know, will not work and when you want to sell them, you will not get anybody to buy them at $200m as scrap’. And that is the situation we are in.
“So, why do we do this kind of thing to ourselves? NNPC knew that they could not do it, but they knew they could eat and carry on with the corruption that was going on in NNPC. When people were there to do it, they put pressure. In a civilised society, those people should be in jail.
Again, in January, Obasanjo said, “I was told not too long ago that since that time, more than $2bn have been squandered on the refineries and they still will not work.
“If a company like Shell tells me what they told me, I will believe them. If anybody tells you now that it (the refinery) is working, why are they now with Aliko (Dangote)? And Aliko will make his refinery work; not only make it work, he will make it deliver.”
