Africa’s richest man Aliko Dangote’s recent broadside—accusing a Nigerian regulator of sabotaging his giant refinery and then publishing a full-page ad questioning how that same official pays foreign school fees on a civil servant’s salary, sent tremors across the continent.
This was not a
billionaire having a tantrum. It was Africa’s most ambitious industrialist
warning that corruption has become so entrenched, so predatory, that even those
who mastered the system now risk being eaten alive by it.
To understand the
depth of this crisis, one must appreciate the scale of what Dangote has built.
His refinery is not a glorified factory. At 650,000 barrels per day, it is designed to be the largest single-train refinery in the world—capable of meeting all of Nigeria’s fuel needs and exporting massive surpluses across Africa.
The fertiliser
plant beside it is equally imposing, producing three million tonnes of urea annually, helping secure Africa’s
food future at a time when global fertiliser markets are volatile and dominated
by non-African suppliers. These are not Nigerian assets alone, they are
continental assets. They tilt the balance of power in Africa’s favour,
revealing the scale of possibility when indigenous capital dreams boldly.
But bringing
these dreams to life came at a cost—financial, political, and personal. Dangote
originally budgeted around US$9 billion
for the refinery. Delays in land acquisition, incessant regulatory battles,
changes in engineering design, global supply chain disruptions, and a cocktail
of local sabotage ballooned the cost to more than US$20 billion. For nearly a decade the refinery became a
punchline, mocked as a fantasy too large for African hands. Yet in truth, much
of the delay came from the system working overtime to frustrate progress.
When former
Nigerian president Olesegun Obasanjo sold him the Port Harcourt refinery, Nigerian
National Petroleum Company (NNPC) unions revolted. Obasanjo’s successor Musa Yar’Adua
reversed the deal. Undeterred, Dangote started from scratch. Once the refinery
began taking shape, the attacks intensified: regulators falsely labelled his
products sub-standard; NNPC refused to supply him crude, forcing him to import
from the United States; trucking unions accustomed to illicit tolls accused him
of monopolistic behaviour; strikes erupted; attempts to unionise his staff
surfaced; unexplained fires were recorded. After 22 incidents of sabotage, Dangote
sacked 800 workers. Parliament begged him to take them back. He did—then
quietly redeployed them far from the refinery.
Yet today the refinery produces PMS, diesel, aviation fuel, and polypropylene. The fertiliser plant exports to the US, Brazil, India and sub-Saharan Africa. Foreign exchange flows in. And still, a Nigerian regulator insists on spending scarce forex importing fuel to keep European refineries in business. If that is not economic sabotage, the phrase has lost meaning...
But the more
uncomfortable truth is this: the sabotage of Dangote is not merely the work of
petty local actors protecting rent streams. It stretches outward—to global fuel
traders, European refiners, and transnational interests for whom an
industrialising Africa is inconvenient.
Corruption is an
ecosystem, and Africa is not just fighting internal greed; it is confronting a
global system that benefits enormously from our dysfunction. Dangote himself
quipped that the drug cartels have nothing on the global oil cartels.
If Nigeria stops
importing fuel, someone loses billions. If Africa stops importing fertiliser,
someone loses control. The corrupt know this. They feed on it. They weaponise
it.
And that is why, for all his imperfections, Africa needs more Dangotes. We need industrialists who know our dust, our politics and our unpredictability. People who won’t flee at the smell of tear gas. People whose understanding of risk is shaped not by spreadsheets in London but by lived experience in Lagos, Kampala, Dakar and Abidjan. Indigenous capital with staying power, not foreign capital that vanishes at the first sign of smoke.
Attempts by
African governments to manufacture such business classes have mostly failed.
Angola tried. Egypt tried. Kenya tried. Senegal too. The result was often the
same: tycoons created by decree, not competition, billionaires of political
favour, not industrial merit. When the winds shifted, they disappeared without
legacy.
Asia took a
different path. The Asian Tigers incentivised exporters, those who could compete
globally—not import substitutors hiding behind tariffs and inflated monopolies.
Samsung, Hyundai, Tata and Mahindra did not grow because the state protected
them; they grew because the state pushed them to conquer global markets. Africa
instead built systems that rewarded rent-seeking over productivity.
Thus the Dangote
refinery does not simply threaten corrupt networks, it threatens a continental
order that feeds on Africa staying small.
And corruption’s deadliest effect is not financial loss but the erosion of trust. Citizens see civil servants sending children to schools costing tens of thousands of dollars annually. They do not see ambition, they see impunity. Inequality becomes obscene. The social contract collapses.
History is clear
about what follows. France’s Bourbons, Russia’s Romanovs, Ethiopia’s Solomonic
dynasty, Iran’s Pahlavis—all believed they could ride the corruption tiger
forever. It eventually turned and devoured them. Africa is no exception. Our
populations are young, urban, connected and impatient. A corrupt state is a
brittle state.
Which brings us
back to Dangote. His refinery and fertiliser plant are not just private
investments. They are continental testaments to what Africa can build when
ambition meets capital, and capital meets courage. They expose the hollowness
of the argument that Africa must wait for foreign benevolence or donor funding
to industrialise. They show what is possible—and that is precisely why they are attacked.
Asia learned long
ago to empower builders, not gatekeepers. Africa must do the same. Because the
corruption tiger is restless. Many think they can ride it. Eventually, it stops
obeying—and when it does, it eats everything in its path, including the elites
who once fed it.
