Sanwo-Olu believes Dangote came to Lagos with nothing 45 years ago

Sanwo-Olu commended the billionaire businessman on Monday, May 22, 2023, during the inauguration of the refinery.

While speaking at the commissioning of the project, Sanwo-Olu said Dangote, who came to Lagos with nothing 45 years ago has set up the biggest empire in Africa. 

“The first story is about a young Nigerian 45 years ago and you see the coincidence in the story. 45 years ago, who came to Lagos, all the way from another mega-city, Kano, who saw the prosperity, the diversity of our country, who came with nothing but in 45 years has built the biggest empire in the world for Africa,” the governor said.

The groundbreaking project, situated in the Lekki free trade zone area of Lagos State started in 2017.

However, Dangote has announced that the first tranche of petroleum products from the company’s refinery would be supplied to the market before the end of July.

Describing the refinery as a milestone for Nigeria’s oil and gas downstream sector, Dangote said that the firm would replicate the achievement of Dangote Groups in the cement and fertilizer sector, adding that the company’s oil would hit the

“It is our firm commitment that we will replicate in this sector what we have actually achieved in the cement and fertilizer markets while Nigeria transformed from being the largest importer of these crude products to a net exporter,” he said.

“Our first goal is to ramp up projections of various production to ensure that within this year, we are able to fully satisfy our nation’s demand for higher quality products to enable us to eliminate the tragedy of import dependency and stop, once and for all, the dumping in our market of toxic substandard petroleum products.

“Our first products will be in the market before the end of July, beginning of August this year.”

The refinery has the capacity to refine 650,000 barrels of crude oil per day.