By Emmanuel Nduka
Nigeria’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, has gotten the backing of modular refinery owners to make public his claims of existing oil mafia in Nigeria’s Oil and Gas industry.
The refinery operators said Dangote buttressed their positions on the existence of the oil mafia who do not want Nigeria to end petrol import.
Heritage Times HT reports that recently, Dangote disclosed the existence of a Mafia that tried to stop him from building Africa’s largest refinery.
The modular refinery operators recalled that they had raised similar concerns on many occasions but received no feedback, and that Dangote re-emphasized their stance last week.
It would be recalled that Dangote mentioned the oil mafia and their efforts to stop him from building Africa’s largest refinery.
Speaking at the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) annual meetings in Nassau, The Bahamas, last Wednesday, Africa’s richest man named Afreximbank and Access Bank as a big part of the refinery funding.
He stated that the vision would have failed without their backing.
The refinery owners under the platform of Crude Oil Refinery Owners Association of Nigeria (CORAN), said the merchants have held Nigeria hostage in domestic petroleum products production and are stifling the country’s supply.
Local Newspaper Punch had reported that Africa’s wealthiest man said local and international oil mafia tried everything to stop him from building the refinery.
“As a matter of fact during the COVID period, some of the international banks were looking forward to making sure that they push us into default of our loans so that the project will just be dead. And that didn’t happen with the help of banks like Afreximbank,” Dangote was quoted as saying.
The business mogul also attributed the rise in food inflation in Nigeria to a hike in petrol prices, and that in-country refining would help tackle the high costs.
