Last year, Nigeria’s most successful and richest person alive in the country, Aliko Dangote, had a meeting with his selected strategists.
The purpose of the meeting was simple.
To decide among the three presidential candidates, Aliko Danogte would support
The three candidates were
Peter Obi
Atiku Abubakar
Bola Ahmed Tinubu
The candidate’s profile, merit, and demerit were analysed by the gentlemen seated in that room.
At the end of the meeting, the consensus was that Atiku Abubakar was a better option to beck , and the reasons were not far-fetched.
Aside from the special chummy relationship between the businessman and Atiku, Atiku, who ironically clocked 77 today, is pro-business, is the right person for corporate business, and has the right skill set to reposition and revive the dead economy.
Also, the fact that the cabal around Tinubu was openly supporting Atiku made Dangote’s decision very easy.
The calculation was that Atiku would win, and based on that, Dangote chose to pitch his tent with Atiku Abubakar by supporting his aspiration to become our president, which did not materialise on February 25.
It was said that Dangote donated money as well to Tinubu’s camapign, which was his normal traditional custom to do, but his body language showed he preferred Atiku, whom he believed would have been a better president for businessesa and the economy in Nigeria than Tinubu.
His arch rival and brother, Abdul Samad Rabiu of BUA Cement, chose to pitch his tent with Bola Ahmed Tinubu and did not donate money to Atiku Abubakar.
His first choice was Bola Ahmed Tinubu
His second choice was Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
His support was so personal that Tinubu people including his wife Remi were flying his private jet during the campaign,
The same is true of Tony Elumelu. It was said that Tony’s UBA provided the much-needed cash for Tinubu’s camp during the ill-fated cash crunch and scarcity before the election.
No wonder, Tony was the first person Tinubu visited in Lagos as a president elect.
Since Lagos is a very small place, news started flying around in a twinkle of an eye.
News got into the ears of Asiwaju that Nigeria’s gift to the world, Dangote is not supporting his aspiration; rather, he has pitched his tent with Atiku.
He was disappointed with the betrayal by Dangote.
Dangote built his wealth in Lagos, the Lagos he owns, and he has been supportive of Dangote’s aspirations before now.
Dangote fully backing him would have bern a way of paying back, his generosity to him, not doing so is a big stab at the back.
That Dangote did not support him, but rather Atiku, was one of the reasons why Asiwaju stayed away when Dangote refinery was later commissioned in the Lagos he owns.
The election is over.
Asiwaju is the president, and the chicken has come home to roost.
For the first time since the return of democracy in 1999, Dangote is not the favourite of a sitting government.
Rabiu and Tony Elumelu have taken his position because they fully backed Asiwaju during the campaign.
“This is the first time the elected government is not particularly aligned with Aliko,” said one senior banker who spoke on condition of anonymity to the Financial Times. “So it has opened a window of opportunity for people to peddle their own influence.”
“Dangote is not as influential as he used to be,” said Ricardo Soares de Oliveira, an Oxford professor of the politics of Africa, who described the billionaire as a Nigerian oligarch. At a time when he had bet his fortune on the success of the refinery, that was not a comfortable position to be in, several close observers of Nigeria said.
Matthew Page, a former CIA expert on Nigeria, told the Financial Times that Rabiu donated heavily to the Tinubu election campaign and had been emboldened by his close relationship with the new president. The cement market was smaller after eight years of economic stagnation, he said. “The tide pool has shrunk, and the two biggest lobsters in the tank are snapping at each other.”
The biggest casualty from the politics of Dangote is his 650,000 Dangote refinery, which has been starved of crude oil by NNPC.
Before Asiwaju came in, Dangote had a binding agreement with NNPC.
The agreement was this:
That NNPC would invest $2 billion in Dangote refinery, or if they cannot invest in cash,they will provide crude oil worth that amount for Dangote refinery to process.
This will give NNPC a 20 percent stake in the Dangote refinery, while Dangote will keep the remaining 80 percent.
NNPC is too broke to drop 2 billion dollars, so they choose to provide 2 billion dollars worth of crude oil in lieu of the cash they were expected to drop so as to own 20 percent.
But there is a problem.
Buhari, who was the president when the deal was sealed, is no longer in power.
The new Whiz kid is not a fan of Dangote any more, so the guys at NNPC saw the body language, which is the fact that Aliko has not visited Aso Rock since Tinubu relocated to Aso Rock, and they were influenced by that to start playing polictis with fuffiling their own side of the bargain.
NNPC, which was at the mercy of Dangote when Buhari was in charge, turned to crack hard nuts under Tinubu.
As of today, the reason why Dangote refinery has yet to refine any drop of crude oil is because NNPC has not supplied the facility with crude oil as they promised to do under the last government.
In a recent interview, Dangote admitted that the issue with NNPC has been solved and refined crude oil will flow soon from his refinery. He also remidned the sharks, circling and baying for his blood, saying that Dangote Refinry is bigger than him, in case they had forgotten.
Rabiu of BUA Cement has visited Aso Rock more than four times since Tinubu relocated to Aso Rock Villa.
The same is true of Tony Elemelu.
Dangote, the poster boy and darling of the previous Nigerian government, has not been invited once to come, and this speaks to how low he has fallen on the ladder.
Stories allegedly floated by BUA Group have accused Dangote of profiting from illegal foreign exchange trades worth billions of dollars.
This government is investigating forex allocations made to Aliko Dangote when Godwin Emefiele, the former central bank governor, was in charge of distributing dollars at the official rate to chosen industries at far below market prices, the Financial Times reported.
Dangote bet on the wrong horse during the last national election, and now the sharks are circling and are baying for his blood and his multibillion-dollar business empire as well.
