Opinion: The Unmasking of Nigeria’s Oil Sector Hypocrisy – The Dangote Refinery Saga

By Olumide Bajulaiye

What is happening at the Dangote Refinery is not just an industrial dispute; it is a war for the soul of Nigeria’s oil sector. Gara Gombe’s post lays bare a reality many Nigerians have long suspected: the entrenched interests within our petroleum industry will fight tooth and nail to maintain a corrupt status quo – even if it means sabotaging the first genuine attempt to make our refining sector work.

For over 30 years, the NNPC and successive governments have failed to repair or run our refineries despite trillions of naira being poured into them. Yet a single private citizen, Aliko Dangote, builds the largest refinery in the world on Nigerian soil, and suddenly every union, agency, and vested interest comes out with accusations, protests, and threats. Why now? Why not when our public refineries were comatose?

Gombe highlights how the NNPC initially tried to choke Dangote through crude pricing and foreign exchange hurdles, forcing him to import crude in dollars to inflate costs. When that failed, the NLC and Lagos politicians raised alarm over the recruitment of security guards from the North — a blatant attempt to whip up ethnic sentiments. Then came NUPENG, then PENGASSAN, with industrial action threats, even though these same unions never protested the collapse of our public refineries.

The truth is painful: these unions and cartels profit from Nigeria’s broken system. Femi Otedola has publicly revealed how trillions have been siphoned from depots through collaboration between unions and stakeholders. Dangote himself says unions collect ₦50,000 per truck loading fuel – costs that trickle down to ordinary Nigerians at the pump. Yet these unions, instead of reforming, are now trying to cripple the one refinery offering hope for cheaper, home-grown fuel.

Dangote’s decision to lay off over 900 PENGASSAN members may seem harsh, but it’s a bold signal: no private investor will tolerate sabotage from entrenched interests who never lifted a finger to fix the mess they helped create. If PENGASSAN and NUPENG care so much about jobs, they should demand the rehabilitation of public refineries rather than strangling a private one.

It’s time Nigerians recognized the real masquerade. The sabotage of the Dangote Refinery is not about jobs or union rights. It’s about protecting decades-old corruption networks that thrive on importation and scarcity. The refinery’s success threatens not only these unions but also foreign suppliers who profit from Nigeria’s dependence on imported fuel.

The fight against Dangote Refinery is not a local fight; it is a fight between progress and decay, between the new Nigeria we want and the old Nigeria that refuses to die. We must all choose a side.