DANGOTE BUILT A COUNTRY AROUND A REFINERY, NOT JUST A REFINERY, SAYS SANWO-OLU
The Governor of Lagos State, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has described the Dangote Refinery as more than merely an industrial project, asserting that its construction showcased Africa’s ability to execute ambitious projects on a market-changing scale.
Governor Sanwo-Olu spoke on Thursday at the official launch of the Africa–Diaspora Leadership Programme 2026 Young Global Leaders Convening, tagged “Building Africa at Scale,” held at the Dangote Refinery and Petrochemical Complex in Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos.
The Governor disclosed that the refinery was built on land reclaimed from swamp, lagoon, and open water, while additional infrastructure, including a jetty and power plant, had to be developed to support the project.
He cautioned, however, that Africa’s development should not rely on individual “heroism,” emphasising that the true measure of the refinery’s success is whether the next major industrial project becomes easier to build.
Governor Sanwo-Olu highlighted the Lekki Deep Sea Port, Lekki Free Zone, and Lagos Blue Line rail as part of his administration’s efforts to create infrastructure that would lessen the barriers for future investors and developers.
Governor Sanwo-Olu also called for increased participation of African pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, and the diaspora in owning strategic assets across the continent. He stated that Africa’s next growth phase requires collective ownership and collaboration.
He said: "Mr. Dangote did not build a refinery. He built a country around a refinery, and then he built the refinery. There was no port capable of receiving the equipment, so he built a jetty. There was not enough power, so he built a power plant. The plant was late; it cost far more than anyone had planned. It endured a pandemic, a currency that lost much of its value, and more than one season in which serious people whispered — quietly, and sometimes not so quietly — that it would never run.
"It runs. That is the first thing to note: Africa can build on a market-changing scale. Not in theory. The thing dismissed as unrealistic is the very thing you are standing inside.
"Scale that depends on one man building his own port and his own power plant is not real scale. It is heroism. And heroism does not repeat. You cannot ask a pension fund to underwrite it. If Africa must wait for a builder of Aliko Dangote’s stubbornness every time it needs a refinery or a railway, then we will build one of everything, and we will build it once."
Governor Sanwo-Olu urged the Young Global Leaders to move beyond discussions and turn connections made during the gathering into practical projects that address real problems, insisting that Africa does not need the world’s permission to build.
He said: "In eleven days, you will gather at 1280 Fifth Avenue, on the edge of Harlem, overlooking Central Park. When you get there, notice something. You will be standing in an island city built on water by people who arrived from somewhere else with nothing but ambition — and you will have just left another one.
"Lagos and New York are not strangers. They are the same argument in two accents: that a city can be made from the sheer determination of people who refused to wait for conditions to be perfect. Carry that with you. Carry the numbers, yes, but carry the harder lesson too: that Africa does not need the world’s permission to build, and that the world, if it comes as a partner and not a prospector, will find that Africa has already started."
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