Prominent Nigerian billionaire Femi Otedola has firmly dismissed insinuations that Aliko Dangote solicited financial backing from Nigeria’s elite business circle to fund his multi-billion dollar refinery project.
Speaking publicly, Otedola made clear that Dangote never approached him, telecommunications and oil mogul Mike Adenuga, or renowned investor and UBA chairman Tony Elumelu for any form of financial assistance toward the refinery’s development.
The clarification is coming amid ongoing public discourse surrounding the financing structure behind the Dangote Refinery — Africa’s largest single-train petroleum refinery — which took decades of planning and billions of dollars to bring to completion.
Otedola’s statement appears to reinforce the widely held view that Dangote single-handedly drove the financial backbone of the project, relying primarily on personal wealth, institutional loans, and structured financing.
The 650,000-barrel-per-day facility, located in Lekki, Lagos, continues to reshape Nigeria’s downstream energy sector and reduce dependence on imported petroleum products.
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