During a recent tour of the Dangote Refinery in Lagos, the president of the Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, highlighted how unreasonable it is for a country of over 200 million people to be limited to 4,500 to 5,000 megawatts (MW) of power.
“We as a company alone are producing, group-wide for our own consumption, over 1,500 MW,” he stated.
“So, Nigeria should not be three times what we are producing as a country. Nigeria should be at about 50,000 MW to 60,000 MW,” Dangote added.
The Nigerian business mogul, whose refinery and fertilizer plants are among Africa’s largest, explained that his company’s investment in energy demonstrates how private sector engagement in power generating can be game-changing.
He encouraged Nigeria’s government to further open up the industry to encourage private investment and involvement.
Dangote, who has spent the last decade developing the $20 billion refinery project, also stated that, while establishing the refinery was extremely tough, increasing Nigeria’s power generating capacity to 30,000 MW is far easier – provided the appropriate policies and commitments are in place.
“What we have done here just shows that there’s nothing impossible. All this can be replicated in our power sector. There’s no reason why Nigeria should be doing 5,000 MW,” Dangote asserted.
“What we have actually done here is much more difficult than making Nigeria 25,000 or 30,000 megawatts of power, with transmission and distribution. But it’s not the work of the government alone,” he continued.
Dangote’s comments come as his refinery, which is projected to drastically cut Nigeria’s dependency on foreign petroleum products, ramps up operations.
Dangote links power shortages to a lack of investment and stolen funds hidden abroad
Much like the fact that such a facility which is typically supposed to be a government initiative is now privately owned, the Nigerian philanthropist noted that the power sector is also privatized, which presents an opportunity for investors.
“We, the private sector, Nigerians, most especially us, should stop taking our money abroad and invest the money here to make sure that we develop our own country and continent, because without us showing the confidence that, yes, we have confidence in our own economy and the leadership of the country, foreigners will not come,” Dangote explained.
“We know our leaders; we have confidence in them. So, that money they’re taking out of the country, they should leave it here so that it can benefit everybody.”
As reported by the Punch newspaper, he criticized people who stole public assets and hid them overseas rather than utilizing them to help develop the country, as he connected capital flight to stunted growth.
“I keep saying this: there’s nowhere that you will say that there’s no corruption. There are lots of countries that have more corruption than we do, but they are growing. Our biggest problem and challenge is that people who have stolen money have taken the money abroad,” he said.
“So, the money has no use to them; it has no use to their family because they cannot show their family that they have stolen money. And they are not investing here to grow the domestic economy.”
