$18 Billion Down the Drain: Dangote Declares Nigeria’s Refineries May Never Work Again

In a brutally honest revelation that has stirred fresh outrage across Nigeria, Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, has declared that the country’s state-owned refineries may never function again—despite the government pouring an astronomical $18 billion into their rehabilitation over the years. Speaking during a recent visit by members of Global CEO Africa to his newly completed Dangote Refinery, the billionaire industrialist expressed deep skepticism about any meaningful future for the ailing refineries and pulled no punches in describing the long-standing mismanagement and systemic failure that have plagued the nation’s oil infrastructure.

Dangote, whose privately-owned 650,000 barrels-per-day refinery has now become the largest in Africa, recounted how Nigeria lost a golden opportunity to solve its refining crisis almost two decades ago. According to him, he and a group of investors had acquired the government-owned refineries in 2007 during the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo, paying a reported $750 million. At that time, the refineries were only managing to churn out about 22 percent of the country's petrol needs. But following the death of President Obasanjo’s tenure and the assumption of office by President Umaru Musa Yar’adua, the sale was abruptly reversed on the grounds that the government could handle the repairs.

Now, nearly two decades later, Dangote’s words ring with bitter vindication. “Today, after spending nearly $18 billion, those refineries are still not working and I doubt they ever will,” he said. He did not mince words in criticizing the repeated rehabilitation attempts, likening them to the futile exercise of trying to modernize a 40-year-old vehicle. “Even if you replace the engine, the body can’t handle it. Technology has changed,” he explained.

This brutal comparison underscores what many energy experts and citizens have long feared—that the government’s refinery revitalization efforts are nothing more than expensive theatre. Despite the billions spent, Nigeria still imports almost all its refined petroleum products, a situation that has driven up fuel costs, worsened inflation, and left the country at the mercy of global oil markets.

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, whose administration greenlit the 2007 refinery sale, has echoed Dangote’s concerns. In a recent interview, Obasanjo revealed that he had personally warned President Yar’adua against cancelling the transaction. “I told him NNPC can’t fix them, but he insisted. Now, even as scrap, they may not sell for $200 million,” he lamented. He did not stop there. Obasanjo directly blamed the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) for decades of negligence, corruption, and chronic mismanagement. “In a civilised country, some people should be in jail for this,” the former president said, visibly incensed.

The financial haemorrhage involved is staggering. Obasanjo estimated that over $2 billion had already been wasted by the time Yar’adua’s government scrapped the sale, and the figure has only ballooned since. Yet the result remains the same: Nigeria’s refineries, once seen as a strategic backbone of national energy independence, lie dormant—more rust than resource.

The implications of these revelations are nothing short of damning. In a country where over 130 million people live below the poverty line, and where infrastructure deficits cripple education, healthcare, and transport, the revelation that $18 billion has essentially gone down the drain is nothing less than a national scandal. For comparison, this amount is almost half of Nigeria’s entire 2024 federal budget. It could have built thousands of schools, modern hospitals, roads, and power plants. Instead, it evaporated in the name of fixing a decaying oil infrastructure that is now widely believed to be beyond redemption.

Even more alarming is the silence from current government officials. The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (formerly NNPC) has yet to provide a detailed and transparent breakdown of how the $18 billion was spent, what contracts were awarded, to whom, and what results were achieved. The usual government statements of "rehabilitation is ongoing" now ring hollow in the face of these high-profile declarations from industry titans and former presidents.

Meanwhile, the Dangote Refinery itself stands as a towering contradiction. Built from scratch with private capital and completed amid the same economic and regulatory challenges that plague the country, the refinery has already begun importing crude oil and producing refined products. Its successful commissioning has sparked renewed calls for privatization of critical infrastructure, with many arguing that government has no business running complex industrial operations it clearly cannot manage.

For average Nigerians, Dangote’s revelations are not just a policy critique—they are a mirror reflecting decades of wasted opportunity. Every litre of imported petrol is a symbol of failed leadership. Every power outage, every fuel hike, every inflationary spike rooted in logistics costs, is a reminder that the country’s most valuable resource has been misused and mismanaged for generations.

What’s even more painful is the possibility that this may not be the last time the nation hears such grim verdicts. The Nigerian government continues to earmark funds for further attempts to rehabilitate these refineries, ignoring the mounting evidence that such efforts are both futile and financially reckless.

If there was ever a moment for a national reckoning, it is now. Dangote’s comments have ripped the veil off a tragic cycle of denial and waste. With $18 billion gone and nothing to show for it, Nigeria must decide whether to continue flogging a dead horse or embrace radical reform through transparency, accountability, and private sector-driven solutions.

As the dust settles on Dangote’s explosive remarks, one thing is clear: history will not be kind to those who squandered the nation’s future on broken promises and failed refineries.