Africa’s richest man and President of Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, has raised alarm over what he described as deliberate attempts by “mafias” in the petroleum sector to frustrate the operations of his multibillion-dollar refinery.

Dangote, speaking in Lagos on Monday after officially flagging off compressed natural gas (CNG)-powered trucks for direct fuel distribution, likened the current resistance to what happened in Nigeria’s once-thriving textile industry, which was eventually destroyed by vested interests.

The industrialist revealed that the first year of petrol production had been extremely challenging due to intense opposition from entrenched interest groups in the downstream sector.

“The past year has been a very rough journey, I must confess. It wasn’t easy because we came in to change the narratives. We came in to change the system of how things have been done in the downstream.

We have people who are used to rent collection. We have people who believe we have taken food from their tables,” Dangote said.

He alleged that both international traders and local marketers have colluded to undermine local refining, preferring instead to profit from importation. “The international traders and the local marketers all connive to suffocate any refinery,” he warned.

His remarks come against the backdrop of ongoing disputes between the refinery and major trade groups such as the Nigerian Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers and the Depot and Petroleum Product Marketers Association of Nigeria.

NUPENG recently shut down depots over claims that the refinery barred its drivers from joining the union. DAPPMAN, on its part, accused the refinery of distorting the market by selling petrol to international traders at N65 cheaper than the rate offered to domestic buyers.

Dangote dismissed the claims, insisting that the refinery was forced to adjust its export pricing in order to survive. “Sometimes we export a little bit cheaper than what we sell domestically, not because we want to, but because we were being suffocated. We are charged premiums on crude, competing with subsidised Russian products, and the only way to keep the refinery running was to sell at lower margins,” he explained.

According to him, petrol remains relatively cheaper in Nigeria because the refinery is deliberately making sacrifices under the naira-for-crude arrangement. “People don’t know that we’re actually sacrificing a lot because the crude we buy through the naira-for-crude deal cannot be exported. We are required to process it and supply locally. At a point, we were even paying a $6 premium to Brent when Russian crude was going for $20,” he disclosed.

He added that 85 per cent of petrol consumed in neighbouring Benin Republic is smuggled across the border from Nigeria, a practice that further complicates the downstream environment.