By Olu Fasan
Aliko Dangote, the richest man in Africa, is a product of the Nigerian state. By deliberate policy choices, the state made Dangote Nigeria’s foremost oligarch with presidents on speed dial. However, recent rifts between Dangote’s oil refinery and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company, NNPC, as well as the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, NMDPRA, not to mention the raid on his business headquarters by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, suggest that all is not well with the long-running relationship between Dangote and the state. Yet, having turned Dangote into a commercial Leviathan, the state must now wisely recalibrate and manage the relationship.
To be clear, Dangote was not born poor. He was born into wealth and became a millionaire very early in life. However, his transition from a millionaire to Africa’s richest man would not have happened without a leg-up from the state, without special favours and preferential treatment from the Nigerian state. To this credit, Dangote himself admits this. Before we come to the refinery saga, let’s tell the fascinating story, as Dangote himself narrated it.
In 2018, Dangote granted an interview with the Financial Times in which he laid bare how he hit the jackpot and got his break. Dangote had part-funded General Olusegun Obasanjo’s campaign for the presidency in 1999. And when Obasanjo became president, he decided to return the favour. One day, Obasanjo called Dangote and said: “Can we meet today?”
Dangote went to
meet Obasanjo who asked him how Nigeria could become self-sufficient in cement
production. Well, Dangote told him that only if imports of cement were banned
would it be worthwhile to produce it in Nigeria. Pronto, with a presidential
diktat and the simple squiggle of his pen, Obasanjo banned the importation of
cement and handed a monopoly license to one man. As the FT put it, Dangote “has
never looked back”, and cement became the crown jewel of his empire.
Of course, it was an utterly
misguided and shortsighted decision, a point later acknowledged by the Jonathan
administration in the Nigeria Industrial Revolution Plan, NIRP, published in
2014. The NIRP said that “the Nigerian cement industry is heavily
concentrated,” adding that “strong regulation is needed to ensure the industry
adequately promotes competition.” The NIRP went on to say that “Nigerian cement
prices are among the highest globally” despite the products being of “low
finished standards”. It was a damning indictment of Obasanjo’s politically motivated
decision. Here’s a country with an estimated housing shortage of 20m units, the
main cause being the high costs of building materials, particularly cement.
Throughout history, cement has
improved people’s health and well-being. In many countries, paving dirt floors
with cement and replacing dirt tracks with paved roads reduced parasitic
infections and boosted living standards. What about shelter, one of humanity’s
primary needs? Few things matter more than having a decent roof over one’s
head. The new Labour government in the UK promised to build 1.5million homes,
and Kamala Harris, the US Democratic presidential candidate, promised to build
three million homes, if elected. That’s because housing can grow an economy and
improve people’s lives. But at its heart is cement!
In his fascinating new book
titled, Material World: A Substantial Story of our Past and Future, the
economist Ed Conway said: “The reason cement has changed the world is not
merely because it has magical qualities but because it is cheap, and it is
everywhere.” Sadly, that’s not so in Nigeria. There is hardly anyone on a
middle-income in Nigeria today who can build a house. Nigeria is not a
property-owning democracy; it is not a property-owning economy. Despite the
promise in the NIRP to regulate and make the cement industry competitive, it is
still dominated by a cartel, by politically connected oligopolists, shielded by
import bans.
Which brings us to the Dangote
Refinery. The $20bn refinery was hailed as a “game changer”, a private initiative
that will meet Nigeria’s refined petroleum needs, producing 650,000 barrels of
refined fuel a day. But the refinery’s entire business model is built around
special favours by the state. For instance, it was largely funded with
concessionary loans from the CBN, while NNPC made a down-payment of $2.7bn for a
20 per cent stake in the refinery, although it later whittled it down to 7.2
per cent. More importantly, the refinery depends on NNPC selling it crude on
preferential terms and won’t survive unless the government stops importing
refined products, thereby giving it a monopoly in the market.
Elsewhere, citizens would ask
why a government that cannot revive four moribund state-owned refineries,
despite spending billions of dollars on so-called turnaround maintenance, and
that refuses to privatise the refineries, would put its political and financial
weights behind one privately-owned refinery. Rationally, the government should
privatise the state-owned refineries, which would foster competition in the domestic
market for refined petroleum. It’s irrational to tie the supply of refined
petroleum products in Nigeria to one privately-owned refinery. It’s utterly
absurd.
Think about it: Farouk Ahmed,
chief executive of NMDPRA, said that Dangote’s refined products are “inferior”
to imported ones. He also said that Dangote wanted the government to stop
importing refined products to give his refinery a monopolistic advantage. These
claims by the oil sector’s statutory regulator should be investigated. Instead,
there’s a cacophony of criticisms by those who want to politicise the issue,
while Tinubu’s administration undermines the NNPC and the NMDPRA by ordering
them to bend over backwards for the Dangote Refinery and give it a lifeline.
Let me be clear, this is not an
anti-Dangote intervention. Far from it. Rather, it’s a piece in support of a
free and competitive market, where there are many buyers and sellers and no
barriers to entry or exit. But Dangote’s instincts are protectionist. In the FT
interview, he said the government should introduce “draconian policy” to ban
food imports “just like they did with cement”. But that’s bad for the Nigerian
economy, and bad for the Nigerian consumer.
Adam Smith said in The Wealth of Nations:
“Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of
the producer ought to be attended to only so far as it may be necessary for
promoting that of the consumer.” Put simply, if cement is of low quality and
expensive, if refined petroleum is of low quality and expensive, the state must
not elevate the interests of producers above those of consumers and the wider
economy. That’s why Nigeria must banish all forms of protectionism, monopoly
and oligopoly. They are enemies of society!
*Dr. Fasan is a commentator on public issues
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