President and CEO of Dangote Industries Limited, Aliko Dangote, has made a passionate appeal to wealthy Nigerians and African entrepreneurs to invest locally as the only path to sustainable development and economic transformation.
In a media chat with select journalists, Dangote emphasised that no nation can grow without significant internal investment, lamenting the widespread culture of exporting wealth and stashing it in foreign accounts.
“No nation develops without significant investments. I appeal to all wealthy Nigerians to look inward and invest here in Nigeria for the future of our unborn kids,” Dangote said.
He added that corruption is not unique to Nigeria, but pointed out a key difference: in many other countries, “the stolen funds are still invested locally to stimulate economic growth.”
Citing the $20 billion Dangote Refinery project, he explained that his vision was to make Nigeria and Africa self-sufficient in refined petroleum products, noting that only Algeria and Libya among African countries are currently self-reliant in this sector.
“People think building a refinery is like building a house… If I had known the scale of challenges, I wouldn’t have started. But we believed that nothing is impossible,” he revealed.
Despite resistance and immense obstacles, Dangote said the decision to push through with the refinery was driven by a desire to ensure energy independence and economic empowerment for Nigeria and Africa at large.
He warned that Africa’s continued dependence on imported goods, especially refined petroleum, will keep the continent economically vulnerable, turning it into a dumping ground for substandard products.
Africa reportedly holds 125 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, yet many of its top producers—including Nigeria—still import refined products, draining foreign reserves and missing out on job creation.
“Africa needs bold, transformative projects to solve its socio-economic challenges. We cannot achieve economic freedom if we continue to export raw materials and import finished goods,” Dangote asserted.
