cracking start

Nigeria: Aliko Dangote wants to “make Africa self-sufficient”

In depth

This article is part of the dossier: Nigeria/France: Le Nouveau Chapitre

By Nicholas Norbrook, in Lagos

Posted on Monday, 28 June 2021 14:30, updated on Thursday, 9 September 2021 11:47

Aliko Dangote, Chairman of Dangote Industries Limited at the Elysée Palace (rights reserved)

Nigeria's leading industrialist is pushing ahead with his refinery, which should see mechanical completion by the end of the year. He is attending President Macron's Choose France summit at Versailles on 28 June to build new links to French industry.

Visitors to Dangote’s refinery often struggle with the scale, whether craning heads up to the 112-metre crude column or driving along the 125km of internal roads within the site on the Lekki peninsula, some 80km east of Lagos. “I call it an industrial city,” says Giuseppe Surace, the chief operations officer at the Dangote Oil Refinery. “It is 19 interconnected projects.”

Some 40,000 workers are active daily on site, with 30,000 living within the perimeter fence.

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allo, allo?

Abdul Samad Rabiu, the CEO and Chairman of BUA Group, has signed several major deals with French companies in recent times, from Axens as technical partner to his new refinery, to a 300tn plasterboard factory deal with French construction giant St Gobain. He intends to list a segment of his business empire on the Lagos Stock Exchange later this year.

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rebuilding networks

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