The President of Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, has raised concerns over Nigeria’s reported daily petrol consumption, claiming the figures are inflated beyond actual usage and pointing to entrenched corruption in the petroleum sector.
According to Dangote, certain individuals manipulated consumption data during the fuel subsidy era to serve personal interests.
While industry marketers on Monday acknowledged the existence of corruption, they noted that daily consumption figures are inconsistent and cannot be pegged at a fixed number, estimating current usage at around 40 million litres per day.
Meanwhile, crude oil refiners also called for a comprehensive investigation to determine Nigeria’s true consumption level, warning that the controversy would persist without verifiable data.
Speaking during a visit by members of Global CEO Africa to the Dangote Petroleum Refinery, Dangote revealed that he was initially reluctant to invest in Nigeria’s petroleum sector due to widespread corruption.
He argued that the country’s actual daily petrol consumption is below 40 million litres, contrary to official claims.
In February, the NMDPRA reported that daily petrol consumption dropped from 66 million litres in 2023 to 50 million litres following the removal of fuel subsidy by President Bola Tinubu.
“Let me reconfirm that from year to year, we saw an increase in the demand for PMS by 2021, 2022, up to 2023, and just before the current administration came in, the daily PMS supply sufficiency was always more than 60 million, averaging about 66 million a day for PMS.
“Following Mr President’s withdrawal of subsidy, the announcement on May 29, 2023, we immediately saw a steep decline in consumption, and between then and as we speak, we’ve continued to do plus or minus 50 million litres. That’s a considerable reduction in volumes,” the Executive Director, Distribution Systems, Storage and Retailing Infrastructure at NMDPRA, Ogbugo Ukoha, said in February.
However, Dangote strongly disagreed with the NMDPRA’s figures, insisting they do not reflect Nigeria’s actual petrol consumption. According to him, the country consumes about 33 million litres daily—17 million litres less than the regulatory authority’s estimate.
He argued that the figures were inflated during the subsidy era, with reported consumption at times reaching as high as 90 million litres per day. Dangote dismissed such numbers as unrealistic, noting that Nigeria does not have enough vehicles on its roads to justify that volume.
“The fuel requirement of Nigeria, which we believe, based on our own estimation, is a consumption of 33 million litres per day. But, you know, because it was a subsidised item, they bloated the numbers, at one point, even to 90 million litres. But we don’t have that number of vehicles. So, real consumption is about 33 million litres of petrol,” Dangote stated.
The Kano-born entrepreneur described Nigeria’s oil sector as “very messy” and plagued by deep-rooted corruption.
Despite his initial reluctance, he said the Dangote Group chose to build the refinery as a strategic move to end Africa’s reliance on imported fuel.
“In fact, oil is not something that we wanted to do as a group because oil has been very, very messy in Nigeria. So, we didn’t want to get into oil because there’s so much corruption. It’s a mafia business, really, and we didn’t want to go in there. It was just much later when we realised that…” he said.
