ByFelix Oboagwina
Perhaps you too have seen the short video clip. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, flanked by a small retinue of aides, descends a flight of stairs. At the lower landing, some male and female personnel react to his presence with curtseying and greetings. He acknowledges them. Smiling widely, he raises his hand, waves at them and speaks.
“Enjoy your weekend!”
In mimicry of that genial tone of Tinubu’s, I today tell Nigerians: “Enjoy your Dangote!”
At Africa’s richest man Alhaji Aliko Dangote’s entrance into the petroleum sector with his mega fuel refinery in January 2024, several Nigerians got carried away. They professed to him love at first sight. For many, the hiccup, turbulence and scarcity that regularly and mysteriously bedevilled domestic fuel supply would be cured by Dangote, whose efficiently-run businesses unquestionably propelled him to the throne of the continent’s wealthiest person.
However, a few people called for caution. I did too. In TheNewsGiant and other online and traditional newspapers, I wrote a syndicated opinion piece in January 2025, titled: “Fuel, Nigerians And A Suddenly Born-Again Dangote?” Sceptics like me pointed out that this behemoth of monopoly had never, was not now, and would never become a Father Christmas, flinging charity to all and sundry with his entrance into the petrol sector. Like most moneyed men, he surely owes his stupendous wealth to shrewd profiteering, to hell with whose ox gets gored.
Admirers, however, shooed away anyone daring to speak ill of this new fuel Czar, their veritable knight in shining armour.
But today, as some predicted back then, the monopolist has begun to show his true colour. First, he needed to malign and paralyse all those capable of mustering opposition to his takeover of the fuel market.
Dangote dragged to court the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), its subsidiaries, the Federal Government and independent marketers to compel them to stop oil importation and unconditionally patronise his 650,000 barrels per day, $19 billion Dangote Refinery in Lekki, Lagos.
Dangote sacked 8,000 Nigerian refinery workers because they opted for unionisation.
Dangote replaced all the sacked Nigerians with Indians –a clear violation of local content regulations.
Dangote underpaid Nigerians working in the refinery with wages lower than expatriates of equal or even lesser qualifications.
Dangote took on the National Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO) and bought his own tankers so he could undertake fuel distribution himself.
Dangote blackmailed and silenced the National Union of Petroleum and National Gas Workers (NUPENG).
Dangote wrestled and silenced the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC).
Can’t you see a pattern? All individuals and organisations capable of taming oil-merchant Dangote, the man has dressed in borrowed robes of monsters; they have been sent to burn at the stake and bonfire of adverse public opinion that sees them as enemies opposed to the Eldorado of local refining that Dangote Refinery seemingly represents.
Neither the government nor the crowd of hailers opened their eyes to see this corporate bloodletting as danger signs of an ultra-monopolist in the making. They cheered on their rampaging gladiator. They kept the cheers going even when Dangote fiddled with the price of fuel. Up one day. Down the next. Up again soon after.
One entity lords it over the entire gamut of the petrol value chain. The problem lies not in the fact that Dangote successfully executes this coup de grace, but that the government allows it. As a result, Dangote’s tentacles today spread through the entire downstream -refining, warehousing, distributing and retailing. Its official retail outlet, MRS, rapidly spreads in leaps and bounds. In fact, not just independent stations but NNPC-branded ones have joined the bandwagon to rebrand to MRS. It spells danger.
See what happened with diesel. All hailed when through Dangote’s intervention, prices dropped to some N800-plus. It’s classic penetration pricing. Those in the field couldn’t compete and abandoned that turf to him. Guess what? Dangote-monopolised diesel has shot up to N1,500. The next product is fuel. And it has begun.
Dangote Refinery, the largest in Africa, brews at 650,000 barrels per day. Of this, Nigeria buys off 340,000. This leaves him 310,000 barrels per day to sell to international markets and reap forex. He saves Nigeria forex as we now spend less on petroleum imports. He makes forex for Nigeria from selling to foreign markets. Fair enough.
Suddenly, the Iran-Israel-US war breaks out and Dangote runs to adjust the price upwards. His private-run refinery has increased the price of PMS in March 2026 alone, five times: From ₦774 to ₦875, then ₦995, then ₦1,175, to ₦1,245 to ₦1,275 and ₦1,332. Talk about increments imposed on a whim. Thanks to all these erratic and capricious price movements, available records today indicate that Nigeria, despite being a major producer of crude oil, has suffered the sharpest increases in petrol prices globally since the Iran war.
Due to the unprecedented record-breaking fuel price, Nigeria is quaking and shaking. The crowd of hailers still defends him. After all, a war rages and business cannot remain as usual. Yes, all that happened.
But what business does that have to do with Nigerian oil bought in Nigerian Naira and refined in Nigeria by a Nigerian refinery based in Nigeria? Crude comes into the refinery locally –not via ships travelling the beleaguered Hormuz Strait! It doesn’t add up! The refinery gets crude at not a dollar-denominated rate! And dollar that headed towards N2,000 last year has stabilised at N1,400 this year. Why should Nigerians become victims of a cutthroat price jack-up?
But that is typical Dangote. When fellow rival in cement, BUA, in 2023 vowed to Tinubu that the commodity would sell at no more than N3,500, Dangote’s brand of 45kg bagging then sold at N7,000. BUA’s promised price of N3,500 never happened, assurances to the President notwithstanding. Today, cement sells for N11,500. Yes, and his company has admitted that Nigerians pay the costliest price for the Dangote Cement brand on the West African coast.
Apart from cement, do you need reminding of the behemoth Dangote’s politics of monopolistic pricing on sugar, salt, spaghetti, flour?
Do you know the real tragedy? Dangote raised fuel price and state-run NNPC followed suit. Meaning that Nigerians had no hiding place or any hope for a cheaper alternative. And the state-run enterprise operates under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who personally handles the petroleum portfolio. Haba! As how naw? This article really is not about the President as the Oil Minister. But it needs reminding that since May 2023, when Tinubu took over, the pump price of fuel has jumped from Buhari’s N197 to the current price of ₦1,332. Clock it!
South Korea got things right in this volatile international energy atmosphere. It capped any increase in fuel price. Other countries opened up their reserves to flood the market and stabilise fuel price. That is the way to go.
Thinking futuristically, Nigeria may like to adopt the formula USA adopted for checking oil giant, Rockefeller. Break fuel monopoly and enforce anti-trust regulations. Until government applies the USA’s Rockefeller treatment, Nigerians evidently will not soon enjoy the advantages of local oil production. Dangote Refinery came into the market when price was at the highest –not before. Some believe that prices sky-rocketed through collusion between Dangote and Mele Kyari, the last NNPC MD. NNPC owns 20 percent shares in Dangote Refinery.
Who is looking after Nigerians’ energy security? The entire economy, our entire life, runs on energy –be it electricity, aviation, fuel, petrol, diesel, domestic gas or compressed natural gas. You don’t let a monopoly or oligarchy to lay a stranglehold on the energy oesophagus to dictate its heartbeat all in the name of deregulation. No country fully, completely and totally deregulates that way. None! If it happens, the state has abrogated the very fundamental raison d’etre for government –the protection of the weak against the strong.
Meanwhile, let’s get back to Dangote. Supporters position people like him as national assets. Altruistic. Charitable. Nationalistic. Efficient. Prototypical. Archetypal. But people like him actually present an opposite reality. Until government wakes up to such people’s penchant for unbridled monopoly, they will dominate, exploit and torment with unbridled greed and ruthless profiteering.
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Same thing happens with monopolies. Monopoly corrupts and absolute monopoly corrupts absolutely. Monopolists need control. They need be reminded of our shared humanity. Their likes need competition. Their likes need moderation.
Billionaire Dangote has never in his preceding businesses shown the character of a benevolent monopolist. And this Fulani leopard will not change its spots when it comes to selling fuel to Nigerians domestically. While organisations like NUPENG and NLC, traditionally and institutionally equipped to check his excesses, have been blackmailed into paralysis, will the Tinubu government rouse to chain this emerging monster of a fuel monopolist?
Until that happens –if it will happen, Nigerians, enjoy your Dangote!
. OBOAGWINA IS A JOURNALIST AND AUTHOR AND WRITES FROM LAGOS
