Akinwunmi Adesina, President of the African Development Bank, AFDB, has thrown his weight in support of Dangote Group over ongoing feud with the Nigerian government.
He said the feud is shocking and is creating bad waves for the country globally.
This was made known in a post shared on X by another Nigerian billionaire, Femi Otedola, where Akinwunmi questioned if there were many individuals or companies that could do railways, or refineries of the scale of Dangote refineries.
He stated that the abnormal has become very normal because the nation has been importing refined petroleum products for several decades.
According to Adesina, the disparaging of Dangote is uncalled for and self-defeating.
On the recent issue of monopolistic claim against Dangote, the AFDB President explained that monopolies often exist where there are high barriers to entry or high capital costs.
Part of his statement read: “To manufacture is extremely expensive and risky. This is even more so in Nigeria, given the very challenging business and economic environment, fraught with policy uncertainties and policy reversals, and where the self-defeating default mode of “simply import it” is always so easily rationalized and chorused to solve any problem.
“Competition is good for everyone. But is Dangote refineries anti-competitive? What is the evidence?
“Has Dangote refineries prevented any other company from setting up refineries? Why have others not done so? How come they have not done so for several decades? Was it Dangote that held them back?
“But Dangote refineries surely cannot be asked to ‘compete’ with importers of petroleum products.
“That is not competition. Let the importers set up local refineries and compete by refining in Nigeria. That is fair and justified competition.
“We cannot and must not undermine, disparage or kill local industries, talk less of one that is of this scale — a jewel of industrialisation in Nigeria.
“It is more than simply delivering the cheapest product to the market. It is about domestic supply security, driving (and yes, protecting) globally competitive industries, maximizing forward and backward linkages in the local economy, job creation, reducing forex expenses and shoring up the Naira.”
Disparaging Dangote uncalled for, creating bad waves for Nigeria – AFDB President, Adesina
