Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man and president of Dangote Refinery, has insisted that the ‘cabal’ in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector is still fighting against the success of his 650,000 barrels per day plant.

Aliko Dangote

Dangote disclosed this, according to Semafor, a global news platform, at an investor forum in Lagos at the weekend.

He said, “For a very, very long time, those that have made a lot of money from government-subsidised oil imports into Nigeria were the ones trying to sabotage the $20 billion worth of refinery situated in Lekki, Lagos.”

He further stressed that “those groups have funded resistance to the Bola Tinubu government’s removal of petrol subsidies and are opposed to the refinery operating easily in the country.”

However, Dangote was confident that the battle between him and the groups would be won, priding himself on being a long-time fighter.

“We’re fighting, and the fight is not yet finished. But I have been fighting all my life, and I am ready and 100 percent sure I will win at the end of the day,” he was quoted.

Recall that Dangote Refinery kicked off the sale of petrol in September 2024, which had led to a significant drop in fuel imports into Nigeria.

In May 2023, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu announced the removal of the fuel subsidy during his inauguration speech.

The Presidency has faulted claim of Akinwumi Adesina, president, African Development Bank (AfDB),  on the current Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita figures versus the level it was in 1960 when Nigeria attained independence.

Akinwumi Adesina, president, African Development Bank

The outgoing AfDB President had in a recent viral statement claimed that Nigerians are worse off today than in 1960 when Nigeria’s GDP per capita was $1847..

The AfDB President claimed that in contrast to the level of the GDP per capita at Nigeria independence, the country’s current GDP stands at $824 today, a reflection of the current rampant poverty and low human development in the country.

But in a rebuttal of the claim, the presidency, in a statement by Bayo Onanuga, the spokesperson to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu accused the AfDB President of failure to carry out proper research and speaking like a politician in his assertions.

“Adesina spoke like a politician, in the mould of Peter Obi and did not do due diligence before making his unverifiable statement,” the presidency said while faulting the claim of the AfDB President.

While countering the claim of Adesina, the presidency noted in the statement that available data indicated that Nigeria’s GDP was $4.2 billion in 1960, and per capita income for a population of 44.9 million was $93, not even one hundred dollars.

“Our country’s GDP did not rise remarkably until the 1970s, when crude earnings ballooned. In 1970, our GDP rose to $12.55 billion. In 1975, it was $27.7 billion, $64.2 billion in 1980, and $164 billion in 1981. Up until 1980, per capita income did not exceed $880. It rose to $2187 in 1981 and dropped to $1844 in 1982. In 2014, after rebasing, it reached an all-time high of $3,200.

“These facts raise questions about the source of Dr Adesina’s figures,” Onanuga said.

However, the presidency also faulted the AfDB President, a former Nigerian Minister of Agriculture of making inferences on the state of poverty or human development in Nigeria solely based on the GPD per capita numbers. .

“Dr Adesina should know that GDP per capita is not the only criterion used to determine whether people live better lives now than in the past. Indeed, it is a poor tool for assessing living standards.

“Its primary usefulness is in giving us the metrics to compare economic output in a country or between countries.

“GDP masks many activities in a country’s economy. It neither discloses wealth distribution or income inequality nor accounts for the informal economy, which experts have said is enormous. It does not account for subsistence farming or income transfer from one family member to another,” the presidency said.

The Presidency also noted that GDP per capita is not reflective of the fact that Nigerians in 2025 have better access to healthcare, education, and transportation, such as rail and air transport, than in 1960.

“This premise alone suggests why Dr Adesina should not have arrived at his conclusion.

“Compared with 1960, Nigeria today has more primary, secondary, and tertiary schools.

“We have more road networks and more medical facilities, private and public. We have phenomenal access to telephones.

“At Independence, we had 18,724 operational phone lines for a population of about 45 million. Over 200 million Nigerians now enjoy near-universal access to mobile phones and digital services, indicating we are better off today than 65 years ago.”

Furthermore, the presidency noted that Nigerian policymakers know that whatever GDP figure NBS publishes may not capture our economy’s full depth and breadth as it usually excludes the greater part of the informal economy, which some pundits have said may even be more significant than the formal economy.

“This underscores why Dr. Adesina should have considered all aspects of our economy before concluding.”

“When Vodacom, a telecommunications company, considered entering the Nigerian market in 1999 or 2000, its consultants, using the available GDP metrics, advised against it.

“They believed that Nigerians were too poor to afford GSM services. However, MTN and other companies that entered the market later proved them wrong, demonstrating that GDP figures alone do not provide a complete picture of a country’s economic potential or the living standards of its people.

“MTN and other adventurers came later, and they laughed all the way to the bank. More than 20 years later, they are still laughing despite some setbacks in 2023 and 2024. In its first-quarter results this year, MTN declared revenue of N1 trillion and an increase of 8.2 percent in subscriptions, which took the number of its voice and data users to 84 million. Does this MTN experience correlate with a country worse off than in 1960, when we had analogue telephones and the number of lines was fewer than 20,000?

“No objective observer can claim that Nigeria has not made progress since 1960. Today, as we await the NBS’s recalibration of our GDP, we can comfortably say without contradiction that it is at least 50 times, if not 100 times, more than it was at Independence.”

Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) is planning to encourage geo-political regions that grants zero charges for ‘Right of Way’ approvals as well not implementing arbitrary charges on telecommunications base stations in their regions with zero tariff.

Engr. Gbenga Adebayo, chairman, ALTON disclosed this to Nigeria CommunincationsWeek against the backdrop of incessant closure of base stations in some states.

He said that operators believe that the way out of this arbitrary charges and high cost of RoW approvals is regional tariffs.

“Operators are advocating for a regional tariff which means that geographical regions of Nigeria where cost of doing business for telecommunications operators is extremely high will attract high tariff compared to regions where there is low operating cost.

“Our advocacy of regional tariff is not based on a particular state but on regions. As at today there are regions where we have zero cost of “Right of Way” and low cost of doing business. Tariffs should reflect on operating environment. This means that national rate plan should consider high and low cost of doing business.

“If this is implemented, in a long run we could witness some regions having zero tariff because operational cost in such regions are friendly to operators,” he said.

It would be recalled that Kogi State recently shut down some operators’ base stations on account of local levies which raises the call for discriminatory tariff among geographical locations.