[OPINION]: Dangote no gree for anybody
By Simbo Olorunfemi
It has been a long walk for Dangote to the point it eventually got to yesterday, with the commencement of commercial production. As anyone who has managed any project of note would know, it is always easier on paper than in reality.
I had to chuckle to myself and simply ignore when someone came on my last post on Dangote to tell me, and by extension, the man and company, that all that was needed to be able to keep to the project timeline was a GANTT Chart. I laughed.
Who would not wish it is always as easy as that? You think Dangote would be embarking on such a monumental, ground-breaking project without the input and skills of Project Managers at play? Apparently, some still imagine Dangote Industries Limited as a one-man business being micro-managed by Aliko Dangote. I laugh.
In disregard of facts and logic, the argument consistently rehashed by naysayers is that Dangote is a success today because of a preferential treatment from the government, which has allowed him to be a ‘monopoly’, even when they cannot point at any sector in which he is one.
READ ALSO: Dangote refinery sets for production as supply hits 6m barrels
He was not the only one that had the opportunity to key into the Obasanjo Government’s backward integration policy which allowed companies to import cement on account of investment in local manufacturing of cement, which would eventually lead to Nigeria attaining self-sufficiency in the production of cement. That Dangote wholeheartedly embraced the policy and massively invested in the manufacturing of cement, while others took their time, cannot be his fault.
Dangote was not the first or only one to receive a licence for setting up a refinery. But he was the one who chose to take on the audacious of dream of delivering a refinery with capacity beyond the local demand. He was the one who chose to see his project through, in spite of all the hurdles.
While it was expected that with the massive and unprecedented nature of the project, delay was almost inevitable, few could have envisaged the level of disruptions that was eventually triggered by COVID-19, not even with the aid of a GANTT Chart or any other tool.
Even as one might have excused the cynics and naysayers who kept talking down the Dangote refinery project, what one couldn’t exactly understand was the conspiracy theories propounded and pushed around. One “investigative journalist” went as far as labelling the project a scam!
Whatever questions thrown at him had a readymade answer that you could be forgiven for actually believing he knew what he was talking about.
Someone asked why anyone would be investing $20 Billion in a phantom project, the guy launched into a lecture on money laundering and round-tripping! So, Dangote had to launch a $20 Billion project just to be able to launder money and round-trip forex?!
Dangote announces the receipt of crude oil, starting with the first million barrels, the “investigative journalist” who had long fixed 2025 as the likely earliest date for commencement of production by the refinery, reminds us that taking delivery of crude does not mean much, as crude oil can be stored away for many years. Dangote might, as well, resell the crude to traders, he proclaimed.
Then, the plant starts up last week, the “investigative journalist” lashes us for “celebrating non-existent accomplishments”, lecturing us on other ‘sources of flare gases in the petroleum industry’, cleverly leaving out the most relevant in this case, which was obviously ‘plant startup’.
I have never seen this level of pushback on what one would expect to be a thing of joy for everyone.
I used to struggle with the thought that people can be so consumed by hate that they actually wish for a bad turn for the country, even as I suspect I must have made that assertion a few times.
Truth is, I struggled, even if I know that there is something about cutting the nose to spite the face. But I just thought…
Well, I think, for some, it is just for egoistic reasons of having their doomsday prophecy proved right, even if it requires of them engineering it as some form of self-fulfilling prophecy. If we talk down the country long and hard enough, pushing the negative narrative and downplay the positives, the country/leadership will fail and we would have been proved right.
That, for me, is the only probable reason why a man will subscribe to the kind of relentless mission to drive negative narrative about one’s own country, even enlisting the aid of falsehood and ignorance for the agenda, as we have come to see with some of our people.
Good thing though, Dangote no gree for anybody, definitely not for cynics and conspiracy theorists, otherwise he wouldn’t have dared take on the dream of a 650,000 barrels capacity refinery, said to be Africa’s largest oil refinery and the world’s largest single-train facility.
Dangote no gree for anybody.
