King Bubaraye Dakolo, Chairman of Bayelsa Traditional Rulers Council has called for total support to Dangote Refinery, the only indigenous private-owned refinery in the country, declaring unions in the oil sector as cabals.
“When you talk about a cabal in the oil sector ensuring that Nigerians keep paying unnecessarily high prices for oil and gas products, that cabal are the oil unions”, Dakolo said when he visited the $19.5 billion Dangote Refinery, Friday in company of Reno Omokri, former presidential aide to Goodluck Jonathan and social commentator.
He told the management of Dangote Refinery that “Niger Deltans have sense of fulfillment that, after years of not making the best of our natural resources, God has raised a man like Alhaji Aliko Dangote and the Dangote Refinery to end the distortions in the value chain of Nigeria’s oil and gas downstream industry, by making local refining of our resources a possibility”.
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He urged both the Federal, State and local governments, the private sector and the unions to cooperate with Dangote as he refines oil locally.
He recalled that the nation’s refineries would have been working since 2007, when the Obasanjo administration sold a 51% stake in the Port Harcourt and Kaduna refineries to a consortium called Bluestar Oil, of which Aliko Dangote was the principal promoter.
“What happened? PENGASSAN went on a strike over the sale, and as a direct consequence of that strike, the late President Yar’adua cancelled the sale. For eighteen years, those refineries remained comatose after spending $18 billion”.
Dakolo therefore said it is preposterous for any organisation or individual to accuse Alhaji Dangote or the Dangote Refinery of being a monopoly. “The industry is open, and anybody or a group can enter it.
“Thirty licenses were given out for refineries, some of which are modular, including the BUA 200,000 capacity per day. With what is happening to Dangote, no right-thinking bank or investor will back any additional refining capacity.
“But because it takes time to recoup capital and make a profit, unpatriotic Nigerians prefer the easy money of importing refined petroleum products for sale in Nigeria, rather than investing in local refining”.
He said no individual or corporation has been as responsible for stabilising petrol prices as Alhaji Dangote and the Dangote Refinery in the last year. In doing that, they have caused succour to occur in society”.
He encouraged for dialogue to resolve any issues in the industry.
Reno Omokri who assessed the massive investment by Dangote in the refinery said Nigeria has dropped in Africa as the largest importer of petroleum products due to the efforts of Dangote Refinery.
According to him, South Africa is presently the largest importer of petrol while Nigeria has made progress in petroleum products export, becoming the largest exporter of refined products in West Africa.
According to him, Nigerians have to realise that the volume of the money they have is not as important as the value of the money they have. “Money has to have value rather than volume and the only way for our currency to have value is when we are producing in Nigeria”.
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Omokri who is advocate of grow Naira and buy Nigerian products with #GrowNairabuyNaija campaign therefore urged Nigerian citizens, the unions and governments at all levels to support Dangote Refinery because the activities of economic strength lie in local production.
He described Dangote as solely being responsible for 10% of GDP of Lagos. He said that the refinery is sitting on 2, 635 hectares with state-of-the-art technology. According to him the refinery is not only upto date but uptil tomorrow.
According to him over 650 ships have taken Dangote products from its multi-billion terminal out of Nigeria to US, Brazil and Argentina and other countries.
The delegation also visited Dangote Fertiliser, Dangote Urea export terminal and Dangote Lab, all at world-class standard.
