Kehinde Fajobi
Billionaire businessman Aliko Dangote has described his $23bn refinery project as the “biggest risk” he has ever taken, admitting that failure would have been catastrophic.
“It was the biggest risk of my life. If this didn’t work, I was dead,” he told Forbes in an exclusive interview on Monday.
Despite its 650,000-barrel-per-day capacity—making it Africa’s largest refinery—Dangote said the journey was riddled with financial, regulatory, and supply chain challenges.
He stressed the need for African-led industrialisation, rejecting dependence on foreign investment.
“We have to build our own nation by ourselves. We have to build our own continent by ourselves, not [rely on] foreign investment,” he said.
Dangote criticised Africa’s reliance on imported refined products, calling his refinery “a pivotal step in ensuring that Africa has the capacity to refine its own crude oil, thereby creating wealth and prosperity for its vast population.”
Despite expanding his business interests to Dubai, where he has a family office and involves his daughters in company affairs, Dangote said his primary focus remains Nigeria.
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He continues to personally oversee operations at the refinery while pursuing other ambitious projects, including a subsea gas pipeline from the Niger Delta to Lagos and the expansion of his fertiliser plant.
Looking ahead, he plans to list the refinery on the stock market within two years.
“I’ve been fighting battles all my life and I have not lost one yet,” he said.