Dangote refinery: Don’t discourage investors with unfriendly policies, monarch tells FG

The Olowu of Kuta in Osun State, Oba Adekunle Oyelude, on Monday, urged the Federal Government to find an amicable resolution to the disagreement with the management of Dangote Refinery to avoid sending wrong signals to prospective investors.

Oyelude, in a statement in Osogbo, Osun State, also called on the President of Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, to be open to further dialogue with the government through the Nigerian Mainstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority to iron out areas of difference.

The royal father reacting to a report alleging that the head of the Nigerian Mainstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, Mr Farouk Ahmed, complained about the quality of products, insisted that the parties involved should dialogue more to protect Dangote’s investment and Nigerian consumers.

“Nigeria, our great nation, emerging as the highest private petroleum exporter in Africa, is not a status and prestige we should throw out of the window. I, therefore, crave the understanding of President Bola Tinubu on this, for the feat will certainly add to the profile of his administration as one through which Nigeria attained that enviable height among the comity of nations.

“This administration can not afford to be seen as putting before prospective investors, unfriendly policies to discourage them from looking at the direction of the country for enterprises that could create jobs for the yawning youths.

“President and Chief Executive of Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, on his part, should be more open to further dialogue with the government through the NMDPRA in order to save his dream project from this seemingly impasse,” Olowu said.

According to him, Nigerians have attached “Aliko Dangote’s name to a monopoly of the nation’s economy, allegedly using his proximity with successive administration to sustain his dominance of the economy evidently with his multi-sectoral investments, for instance, in cement, sugar and salt.”

Going by the current experience Oyelude advised Dangote to review “… by complying with the demands of the government if only for the sake of national interest.

“To my understanding of elementary finance, it makes no economic sense for an investor of that magnitude to be operating below his investment capacity level as the refinery is, unfortunately, experiencing the disappointment and indeed pains of those of us who had seen a bigger picture of the project that, we had hoped and still believe, would end the perennial fuel crisis the nation has endured for about 50 years.”