President of Dangote Industries Limited, Aliko Dangote, has predicted that Nigeria will not see another new refinery built over the next 10 years unless the government creates a more supportive and consistent policy environment for domestic industry.
Speaking in an interview with ARISE News, Dangote made the unusually specific prediction while discussing the difficulties confronting entrepreneurs seeking to make large-scale industrial investments in Nigeria.
Dangote said high borrowing costs were already a major impediment, arguing that it was “very difficult to industrialise with interest rates at 30%.”
But he said the bigger obstacle to new refinery investment was the absence of policies that sufficiently protected investors committing enormous sums to domestic production.
“Under the current things that are going on, especially in the downstream, I cannot see any new refinery in our lifetime,” Dangote said.
He then challenged Nigerians to return to his prediction in exactly a decade.
“Mark me and write it on board,” he said.
“I’m telling you today is 13th of September, 2026. I want me and you to review another September — I mean, 13th of September, year 2036. By God’s grace, if we’re all alive, by God’s grace, there will not be any refinery.”
Asked why he was so certain, Dangote replied: “Because there is nothing to encourage anybody to do that.”
Dangote said the challenge extended beyond the cost of borrowing, arguing that industrial investors required a policy environment that offered sufficient protection for domestic production.
“Not the interest rate, because the policy is not there to protect,” he said.
“If a government wants to create jobs, they want to create economic activities, they want to collect tax, they also have to give something in. And the only thing that they will give in is to protect the domestic industry.”
Dangote argued that excessive reliance on imports ultimately deprived Nigeria of employment opportunities and productive capacity.
“If you import, what you are doing is that you are importing poverty and exporting jobs that you’re supposed to create out of the country,” he said.
He cited India, Singapore and South Korea as examples of countries that had developed substantial refining capacity despite producing limited or no crude oil themselves.
Dangote said Nigeria and the wider African continent had entrepreneurs capable of undertaking similarly ambitious industrial projects but argued that many were reluctant to commit their capital because of the risks surrounding the operating and policy environment.
“They have, they have,” he said when asked whether Africa had enough entrepreneurs.
“But these entrepreneurs, most of these entrepreneurs, they are actually scared to death.”
Asked why businessmen like him could not persuade other wealthy Nigerians with substantial liquidity to invest in major industrial projects, Dangote said the willingness to repeatedly confront the difficulties involved in large-scale investment was not universal.
“I’m trying my best, but everybody is not Aliko, who wants to fight every day.”
“I fight every day, morning, day and night,” he added. “It has become part of me now. I enjoy fighting.”
His comments come as the Dangote Petroleum Refinery seeks to expand its own refining capacity, with Dangote arguing that Nigeria must create conditions that encourage other investors to build productive assets rather than rely heavily on imported petroleum products.
For Dangote, attracting another generation of large-scale industrial projects will require not only cheaper financing but policies that give investors greater confidence that domestic manufacturing and refining will remain commercially viable over the long term.
Demola Ojo
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