Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, has
stated that he’s not in business solely to
make money, but is just as interested in
developing Africa and humanity, hence his
philanthropic works through his foundation.
He equally said that labelling Nigeria
corrupt based on past misdeeds
undermines the efforts of President
Muhammadu Buhari to rid the country of
graft, and called on leaders of countries
where stolen assets are hidden to assist in
repatriating the stolen funds and support
the federal government’s anti-corruption
drive.
Dangote, who spoke in an interview on
THISDAY’s sister cable news network, Arise
News, also observed that the anti-
corruption fight was so intense that he
could be arrested if found wanting.
According to him, “A lot of people just have
an impression of Nigeria based on what
they have heard from the media. This is
very wrong. Nigeria might be ‘fantastically
corrupt’ but that was in the past, not now.
“There is a difference between was and is.
President Buhari is doing his very best to
rid Nigeria of corruption. There are no
limits. I am sure that if I am found wanting
tomorrow, nobody is going to save me,
everybody will face his own music. I think
the president is doing well and he needs our
support.
“That is why the call for the return of stolen
assets should be supported. If a corruption
case is established everything should be
done to return the assets to the owners.
“If you remember the Abacha loot that
people keep talking about, up till now we
are still struggling to repatriate the funds
since 1998. I personally believe that things
have changed dramatically and everyone
now knows that you can no longer do
things and get away with them.”
On the way out of the country’s foreign
exchange crisis, he said the situation has to
be managed, as Nigeria does not have
enough reserves to support all the demand
for forex as it did in the past.
“The situation in Nigeria is what we have to
manage, we have to manage the resources
that we have because we do not have the
foreign reserves to support all the import
demands as it used to be.
“I think the demand side is what we have to
look at because a lot of things are being
imported into the country. We cannot have
a population of close to 200 million and is
dependent on importation.
“However, those days are gone forever.
What we need to focus on are things that
would add value to our economy and put
less demand on the foreign reserves.
“What that means is that we need to
diversify the Nigerian economy, which we
are doing. There are a lot of things in the
pipeline which nobody is talking about;
people are only looking at the bad side of
things, which I think is wrong.
“But let me tell you what we are doing at
Dangote Group: today we are building the
single largest refinery in the world. The
refinery has the capacity to produce about
650,000 barrels of crude oil per day (bpd),
which is very crucial for Nigeria.
“First of all, there will be consistent supply
of product when that is built, as there will
be no shutdown. Nigeria only consumes
about 450,000bpd, which means we will
have an extra 200,000bpd to export.
“We also have a petrochemical plant which
is for polypropylene production of about
1.3mmt, which means Nigeria will be the
highest exporter of petrochemical products
which will improve our capacity.
“We are also doing 3 million tonnes of urea
and ammonia which are used for fertiliser.
Most sub-Saharan African countries import
their fertiliser needs but we plan to change
that with what we are doing.
“Again, we have two gas pipelines of about
250 kilometres each from the Niger Delta.
Each would transport 1.5 billion standard
cubic feet of gas per day (bscf/d). Both will
give us 3bscf/d and that will generate
12,000MW of power and it will also be
connected to the West African Gas Pipeline
project. So we are doing a lot which is not
being reported, “he said.
On why he is in business, he said: “We are
not in business just to make money, our
aim is to develop Africa and to help
humanity. That is why we are doing a lot of
philanthropic work, which we started as far
back as 1993.
“The (Dangote) Foundation was not
established today, it was established a long
time ago. When you look at our businesses,
most of our investments are futuristic in
nature where we want to take Nigeria and
Africa to the next level.”
Elaborating on his partnership with the Bill
and Melinda Gates Foundation, Dangote
added: “What we are doing with Bill Gates
is routing immunisation, polio vaccination
and primary healthcare, it is a partnership.
“The other thing that we did recently is to
look at nutrition because we have a lot of
children with stunted growth in Nigeria. We
are actually number three in the world in
that regard.
“To eradicate it, the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation donated $50 million and the
Dangote Foundation donated $50 million.
This will enable us fight malnutrition in the
next four to five years taking us to 2020.
So we have been very successful in this
regard.”
[ThisDay]
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