Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest person, says Nigeria will stop importation of petrol into the country by June.

Dangote spoke at the Africa CEO Forum Annual Summit in Kigali on Friday.

He said the country should end petrol imports by June when Dangote refinery commences production of the product.

“Right now, Nigeria has no cause to import anything apart from gasoline and by sometime in June, within the next four or five weeks, Nigeria shouldn’t import anything like gasoline; not one drop of litre,” he said.

Consequently, Dangote said the shortfall in the supply of petrol will be addressed not only in Nigeria but other West African countries.

“We have enough gasoline to give to at least the entire West Africa. We have enough diesel to give to West Africa and Central Africa,” he said.

Dangote said there is enough aviation fuel to meet the continent’s demands, as well as export to Brazil and Mexico.

Speaking on the commencement of petrol production by the refiner, Dangote said “next month, we will be producing diesel and gasoline”.

He said the refinery would take most African crude grades.

DANGOTE SAYS REFINER WILL NOT FOCUS ONLY ON PETROLEUM PRODUCTS

Dangote said the refiner would not only focus on producing petroleum products.

“Today, our polypropylene and our polyethene will meet the entire demand of Africa and we are doing base oil, which is to do like engine oil,” he said.

“We are doing linear benzyl, which is raw material to produce LLB, which is raw material to produce detergent. We have 1.4 billion population and nobody is producing that in Africa.”

He said all the raw materials detergents are being imported into Africa, adding that the refinery is producing these raw materials to make Africa self-sufficient.

“As I said, give us three and a maximum of four years and Africa will not, I repeat, not import any more fertilizer from anywhere. We will make Africa self-sufficient in potash, phosphate (even if we don’t have enough, there is a lot in Morocco. But we are also looking at the opportunities,” he said

“For our urea, we are at three million tonnes and in the next twenty months, we will be at six million tonnes of urea which is the entire capacity of Egypt.”

The business mogul said the refiner has 650,000 barrels per day, one million tonnes of polypropylene, 590,000 carbon black — the raw materials ink, dyes and others.

Dangote said the second phase of the refinery will start early next year.

Victor Onyejiuwa, managing director of The Source Computers Limited, says he never had any interaction with Godwin Emefiele during his dealings with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

On Friday, Onyejiuwa again appeared before the Lagos high court in the ongoing trial of Emefiele, former governor of the CBN.

Emefiele and his co-defendant, Henry Omoile, are currently facing trial on a 26-count charge.

The former CBN governor and Omoile have pleaded not guilty to all the charges.

Since their arraignment, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has been presenting witnesses to support its case against Emefiele.

FIRST APPEARANCE

On May 9, Onyejiuwa appeared before the court for the first time to testify against Emefiele.

Onyejiuwa told the court that his company provided information and communication technology assistance to the apex bank between 2014 and 2019.

The witness said the CBN awarded at least five contracts to his company during the period.

He added that in 2017, the apex bank awarded an “enterprise storage and servers” contract to his firm.

Onyejiuwa said after the contract was executed, he was approached by John Ikechukwu Ayoh, a former CBN director, who allegedly said the “management needs something” from the contract.

The witness said Ayoh told him that if he did not accede, the funds meant for the contract would not be approved by the management.

He further told the court that Ayoh collected $400,000 and $200,000 — on two separate occasions — from him before the funds for executed projects were paid by the apex bank.

Ayoh had previously told the court that he collected money from contractors as gratification for awarding contracts to them based on the instruction of Emefiele.

CROSS-EXAMINATION OF ONYEJIUWA

At the resumption of the hearing on Friday, Olalekan Ojo, counsel to Emefiele, cross-examined Onyejiuwa on his previous testimony.

Asked if he physically engaged with Emefiele during his transactions, the witness said he did not meet with the former CBN governor.

Onyejiuwa said all channels of communication were through Ayoh.

“We only communicated through WhatsApp calls. I was interfacing with Ayoh. I have not met with the first defendant (Emefiele) before,” he said.

Emefiele’s counsel also asked the witness whether he confirmed that Ayoh was acting on behalf of CBN management — but Onyejiuwa responded in the negative.

Onyejiuwa said he was under pressure from his partners on financial obligations and that he had no choice but to accede to Ayoh’s request.

The witness also said he did not report the alleged request for a bribe to the police or EFCC.

After the cross-examination, the case was adjourned till July 9 and 10 for continuation of trial.

The Federal Government (FG) has approved the re-constitution of governing councils at public tertiary institutions.

Folasade Boriowo, media head at the federal ministry of education, confirmed this on Saturday.

In June 2023, the National Universities Commission (NUC) dissolved the councils of all federal varsities on a presidential directive.

The federal directive also affected the governing boards of government-funded parastatals, agencies, and institutions in education.

It stalled administrative decision-making in public tertiary institutions by mandating these universities, colleges of education, and federal polytechnics to seek ministerial approval for functions previously overseen by the governing board or councils.

The re-constitution of governing councils now comes after 11 months of repeated calls from education stakeholders.

Among them is the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) which argued that the non-reinstatement or reconstitution of governing councils in universities was causing an uptick in cases of “illegality and flagrant violation” of institutional autonomy in public universities.

Chris Maiyaki, the NUC’s executive secretary, said a committee was set up to ensure the most qualified people are put in the councils.

“As soon as they are constituted, they will be made to undergo orientation courses immediately, to ensure they are in tune with the expectations of the knowledge of government structures and laws of institutions,” the NUC head had stated.

“It will also help them to understand those cross-cutting issues that we need to nip in the bud, to ensure our institutions regain their glorious paths.”