Federal Republic Of Alhaji Aliko Dangote And Fuel Subsidy Debacle

Federal Republic Of Alhaji Aliko Dangote And Fuel Subsidy Debacle

By Erasmus Ikhide

IN 2016, Alhaji Aliko Dangote got $2b dollars allocation from Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) by processing form ‘A’ for intangible goods.

He got the dollars at the cheapest rate, moved it out of the country to buy equipments to establish factories in other African countries, and there was no earthquakes under his feet.

The smart man simply round-tripped with the dollars and made several more billion dollars from it and averted his gaze cheerfully.

Those at the apex bank in charge of business racketeering got their fair shares of the luscious sleaze in percentages, dusted their foots and moved on.

That is the problem with Nigerian successive governments and its leadership of the country. They are perpetually delusional to the point that, they believe when they support a few cabals and economy predators like Alhaji Aliko Dangote, who can hide their illicit dirty stolen money from the prying eyes of the media, the country would be better off. That’s extreme reductionism at its summit.

In a letter dated 28th of January 2021, addressed to Otunba Niyi Adebayo, the then Minister of Trade and Power, signed by Alhaji Aliko Dangote, Chairman, Dangote Industries Limited and Mr John Coumantaros, Chairman, Flour Mills Plc, both dominant billionaire business giants, sought for the exclusion of other Nigerians from participating on equal terms in the same businesses in which they’re involved in.

On the 8th of September, 2009, Tariff and Trade Headquarters of the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) having thoroughly investigated Dangote Cement financial fraud and its operations outside the laws governing importation of cement wrote the company thus:

CIRCULAR NO.017/2009, IMMEDIATE STOPPAGE OF CLEARANCE OF IMPORTED BAGGED CEMENT:

“I am directed to remind you of the expiration of the concession granted you by Mr. President for the importations of Bagged Cement which was for one year only and thus elapsed by December 2008.

“2. In view of the above, you’re hereby directed to stop the clearance of imported bagged cement, including those presently undergoing clearance, immediately.

“3. In addition, you are to furnish Headquarters with all details relating to the shipment of bagged cement that were cleared this year through our command indicating the ones that were cleared after expiration of the concession but were granted Presidential approval because they were waiting discharge.

“4. Please treat as urgent
Taylor A.O, Asst. Controller General (T&T) For Controller General of Customs.

The above are some of the countless instances of stark economy sabotage meant to constrain Nigerians, to patronize Aliko Dangote’s businesses alone without alternative sources and choices.

That way, they have defeated economy sense and analysis which stipulates that when more goods are available from different sources, the cheaper the products and services.

More of the shading deals of the nation’s highest financial institution came to the open while Alhaji Aliko Dangote was unveiling his personal refinery a few weeks ago.

At the commissioning of the half-baked Alhaji Aliko Dangote’s Refinery, drenched in absolute paparazzi, the infamous Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr Godwin Emefiele, announced to the unsuspecting audience that Aliko Dangote had paid 70% of the loan he took for the building of the refinery. Really!

That couldn’t have been lost on critical thinkers like some of us at the barricades, about the possibility of a refinery that is not operational to raise financial capital to pay off 70 per cent of the loan he took to build his refinery – after the Federal Government had allowed her four refineries to lay moribund – having borrowed itself out of economy existence.

A cursory inquiries into the opaque Dangote Refinery revealed that the Nigeria stock exchange does not have any record of share sales in relation to Dangote Refinery, other than the NNPC alleged 20 per cent investment.

That has put further lies to the claims of Godwin Emefiele, even though Nigerians are already aware that Dangote Refinery was built with Nigerian money by the government in power.

Nigerians are in the know that government officials invested heavily and secretly in the Dangote group on an individual basis to avoid public scrutiny.

Dangote group borrowed $3 billion dollars to build the refinery, which evidently cost $3.8 billion dollars to build, according to findings. At 70 per cent completion, the refinery was revalued in paper to be $13.9 billion dollars during the commissioning.

Up till this moment, NNPC didn’t find it necessary to put the nation in the know as the statutory industry regulator and affirmatively a competitor with four moribund refineries in Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna, yet decided without public knowledge or input, to buy 20% shares in Dangote Refinery to the sum of $2.8 billion dollars.

The total amount required to revamp Warri and Port Harcourt refineries is $2.65 billion dollars. The question here is, what is the special interest in Dangote Refinery?

Yet, another conundrum: why did ex-President Muhammadu Buhari hurriedly commissioned a refinery that is only 80% completed? The refinery may not be functional until January 2024, according to report.

It was also reported that the NNPC, the industry regulator had advised the House of Representatives Appropriation Committee that the Dangote Refinery would be up and running in March 2024, hence there would be no need to make provisions for fuel subsidy in 2023/24 Budget.

Unfortunately, the refinery is not ready and there are no provisions for subsidy in the budget or any form of palliatives and now the nation is on its belly.

When Dangote came into cement production, the government brought in a fictitious quality standard designed to restrict cement supply to his company and cut off all imports.

The same style has now been adopted to grant Dangote the exclusive right to supply petrol to NNPC at a price determined by Dangote and his co- travellers.

The subsidy removal was planned and agreed by the government as a pre-condition for Alhaji Aliko Dangote to build a refinery when the Western world is moving away from Fossil Fuel.

The removal of the subsidy is to maximize profits for the owners of Dangote Refinery, i.e Mr Buhari, Mele Kyari, Emefiele, and other cabals at the corridor of power.

Between 2016 and 2022, the Buhari regime granted duty waivers to captains of industries who are importing goods into the country, to the sum of N60 trillion naira and 90 per cent of that amount went into Aliko Dangote’s monopolistic dominance of the nation’s economy businesses.

This informed my earlier inquiries regarding the over subsidized Aliko Dangote’s numerous companies that have been enjoying tax holidays, while other Nigerians doing the same businesses languished in stagnation.

Now the masses are forced to buy Dangote’s goods and services through their nose at great costs without an option for alternatives.

Up till this moment, Aliko Dangote has not accepted nor denied the allegation that the Dangote Group of Companies alone received N16 trillion naira in the last 8 years of former President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration!

Aliko Dangote must come clean on how much he is paying to the Federal Government of Nigeria, for his litany of companies: Dangote Cement, Dangote Sugar, Dangote Salt, Dangote Danvita, Dangote Sacks, Petit Tomato Paste, Dangote Macaroni, Mowa Waters, Dangote Flours and Semolina, Dangote Pasta, Stock Seasoning Cubes, Dangote Vegetable Oil, Dangote Fertilizer, Dangote Haulage, Dangote Food and Beverages, Dangote Spaghetti, Dangote Ziza Milk, Dansa Juice, Dangote Noodles, NASCON Allied Industries Plc, and a whole lot of other aspects of decaying national economy, appropriated solely and consolidated into his hands.

Out of the all the numerous cement companies in Nigeria namely; Madewell Cement owned by Chief David Iweta, Reagan Renaissance Ltd, Calabar, owned by Chief Reagan Ufomba, Minaj Holdings Ltd, Enugu, owned hy Senator Mike Ajaegbo, Gateway Cement, Ogun, owned by Chief Wole Odegbami, Maan Lababidi, lagos, Bua International Ltd, owned by Isiaku Rabiu; Majin Roy, lagos and Ibeto Cement, it’s only Dangote Cement that’s operational.

This is in spite the fact that many of them having been existing before Alhaji Aliko Dangote came into the business, yet they have all parked up simply because government prevented them from accessing import and local licenses apart from Aliko Dangote, to participate in cement business, like other businesses.

Welcome to the Federal Republic of Alhaji Aliko Dangote’s company, called Nigeria.

The Nigerians people have a choice: either to remain forever exploited by an over pampered and slave-driving oppressive oligarch or make the unequivocal demand for discontinuation and total end of Dangote’s ignoble business atrophy!

‘Politics Nigeria’, an online news medium came to town yesterday, with what we already knew thus: “Emefiele suspended over $1 Billion transaction allegedly linked to Dangote”.

Now, it is clear that Godwin Emefiele’s suspension is reportedly tied to a staggering $1 billion scandal that unfolded just before the Presidential inauguration.

His suspension, arrest and detention arose after Emefiele’s borrowing of $1 billion from Afrexim Bank on April 24, 2023, after the elections, while preparations for the May 29 inauguration was crystalizing.

According to the report, within two days of receiving the money, $750 million was swiftly transferred to Aliko Dangote’s Dubai accounts, using a ‘Form A’ – without the knowledge of the then President-Elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

The huge fund was allegedly received from Afrexim Bank into the CBN’s JP Morgan account on April 24, 2023, out of which $750 million was immediately transferred to Dangote’s Bluestar Dubai account, within two days using the “Form A” transaction method, bypassing the requirement of a Letter of Credit.

Bluestar has had ties to Dangote since 2007. Sources within the CBN also claimed that Emefiele solely sold the dollars to Dangote at an unbelievably low rate of 445 Naira to the dollar.

While some CBN officials raised concerns about these transactions, this revelation highlights the potential for money laundering and illicit activities within Nigeria’s financial system, thereby tarnishing the CBN’s integrity under Emefiele’s leadership.

In the first part of this piece, I also pointed out how in 2016, Alhaji Aliko Dangote got $2b dollars allocation from Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) by processing ‘Form A’ for intangible goods.

He used the money – like the ones before it from the CBN through the same process – to build factories of fully integrated quarry-to-customer producer with production capacity of up to 51.6 million tonnes per annum (Mta) in Cameroon, Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia, as at 2022.

The Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) has told the global community that Nigerian government lost 619.7 million barrels of crude oil, valued at N16.25 trillion ($46.16 billion) to crude oil theft between 2009 and 2020. Immediate past National Security Adviser, General Babagana, also said that Nigeria might lose $23 billion in 2023 to crude oil theft.

The present government of Senator Bola Amhed Tinubu of the APC, just as his successor, Ex-President Muhammandu Buhari hasn’t read the riot act to the security agencies concerned or map out any visible strategy to confront the known organized behemoth of crude oil criminal syndicates.

It was reported on August 8, 2018, that Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved the installation of technology monitoring schemes and structures under the Petroleum Equalisation Fund (PEF) for N17 billion.

The technology which was designed to track and monitor tankers conveying fuel and other petroleum products was not acquired while the N17 billion approved for it was diverted.

If President Bola Tinubu wants Nigerians to trust his commitment to stamping and tackling the hydra-headed monsters pillaging the oil industry, and the existing primitive colonial approach, he should revisit and trace the individuals and companies that got the money for that purpose.

The problem with Nigerian State and its successive governments is that, they incentivize impunity, rewards criminalities and have been nurturing business profligacy for the very few privileged members of the business community, like Alhaji Aliko Dangote, who wholly buys the dollars at official rates, while they are allowed to import all manners of goods into the country, and the majority in the same businesses are left to slug it out, in the hands of black market Bureau De Change operators.

This is in spite the fact that the likes of Aliko Dangote, in the last 5 years, have been having import duties worth of N16 trillion waived for them, yet prices of good and services keep skyrocketing by the day.

Ex-President Muhammandu Buhari’s government revealed on December 19, 2018 that government enterprises, including the CBN owed about N10 trillion in unremitted operating surplus as at August 2018. The details were provided.

The said sum of N10 trillion remains unpaid till date, and no one is asking questions. A group of lawyers engaged by NIMASA confirmed that 60.2 million barrels of crude oil valued at $12.7 billion of crude oil was stolen and illegally exported to the United States of America between January 2011 and 2014.

This has not been recovered. Also, the House of Representatives investigated and confirmed that undeclared crude oil worth $17 billion was exported to global destinations during the same period.

The affected companies are known but government seems to lack the will to bring them to book and recover the sum of $29.7 billion, being the value of the stolen crude, according to Hon. E J Agbonayinma in the 8th National Assembly.

Also, the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) revealed that between 2009 and 2020, that Nigeria lost 619.7 million barrels of crude oil valued at N16.25 trillion ($46.16 billion) to oil theft.

The security forces have not been able to stop the stealing and smuggling of crude oil from Nigeria, knowing that crude oil are not smuggled with bowls and buckets.

It is common knowledge that between 1993 and 2016, successive regimes have spent through the NNPC, about $6.065 billon on the so-called Turn Around Maintenance (TAN), and rehabilitation of the four refineries at various times.

It is in the public domain that the Turn Around Maintenance of the refineries was not carried out, yet APC/Buhari’s government which rode to power on the plank of anti corruption mantra, openly promoted corruption to grand act that made them ‘fantastically corrupt’.

The Federal Government has reportedly invested $2.7 billion in Dangote Refinery, while the NNPCL will supply the refinery with 300,000 barrels of crude oil per day.

Interestingly, the Federal Government said it has awarded the contracts for the rehabilitation of the two refineries in Port Harcourt for $1.5 billion, as well as Kaduna and Warri refineries for $1.4 billion, respectively.

How about the Nigeria LNG Limited that is jointly owned by Nigeria and the Organization of Islamic Countries (OICs)? The 49% shares of Nigeria in the joint venture were paid for from the Federation Account in 1989.

On March 29, 2021, former President Buhari disclosed that the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) had generated $114 billion in revenues, paid $9 billion in taxes, $18 billion as dividend and $15 billion in Feed Gas Purchase to the Federal Government. Up till this moment, NNPCL has refused to account for the $33.9 billion dividend and feed gas that was allegedly diverted by the NNPCL.

Last week, the Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Mr. Mele Kyari, came under intense public scrutiny when he told the nation that the Federal Government still owes some companies N2.8 trillion in fuel subsidy payments. But the monumental fraud that has characterized the fuel subsidy scam has been confirmed by the Buhari regime.

In economics sense, while countries and business community encourage proliferation of businesses, Aliko Dangote thinks otherwise.

Aliko Dangote is responsible for the death of most thriving textile industries namely; Nigerian Textile Mills, one of the most thriving vertically integrated mill producing 100% Cotton fabrics in Nigeria in Northern Nigeria, ditto polypropylene bag Industry.

Dangote also sets out deliberately to compete with BAGCO. Lafarge, which bought over the former Portland Cement at Ewekoro, Ogun State, is not fairing any better under the very terrible unequalled business environment.

In the year 2018, a company constructed 10 kilometers pipeline for Dangote fertilizer plant in Lagos and finished the job in 2019, and was issued a job completion certificate, after going through the necessary audit with Delloit in 2021.

Alhaji Aliko Dangote initially agreed to settle out of court but all of a sudden he fired the initial lawyer and went ahead to hire a powerful SAN, and a former NBA chairman, who is currently facing EFCC over fraud and money laundry.

The said contractor is in so much debt with local and foreign banks, as well as with subsidiary suppliers. Now, the businessman’s life is in danger.

How do you expect small businesses to grow with this type of abominable business ethics, deliberately designed to suffocate other struggling businessmen and women?

What justifications does Aliko Dangote has for sitting on the young man’s money for over 3 years and 6 months? Who’s going to redeem the industrial sector’s of this given abnormalities and open ended internal colonialism?

This has been the nauseating routine for Alhaji Aliko Dangote, in the last two decades, for the rentier state in Nigeria, where the most powerful in Nigerian economy system, rides roughshod, and the rest of us are pretending as if nothing is happening, because of dubiety and hogwash appellation of the ‘Richest Man in Africa’. So much for a country rooted in terrible ritual and magic!

Erasmus Ikhide can be reached via: [email protected]