Nigeria: Press spotlights delay in take-off of Dangote refinery, others

APA – Lagos (Nigeria)
The report that the failure to supply crude oil to domestic refineries, including the multi-billion dollar Dangote Refinery, has stalled the production of refined petroleum products at the facilities is one of the trending stories in Nigerian newspapers on Thursday.
The Punch reports that the failure to supply crude oil to domestic refineries, including the multi-billion dollar Dangote Refinery, has stalled the production of refined petroleum products at the facilities.
This is also as the 650,000 barrels per day Dangote refinery in Lagos missed the October production projection it had earlier set.
The October production target miss made it the second time in 2023 that Dangote Refinery would raise hopes of Africa, especially Nigeria, of a possible end to petrol importation. However, the failure to begin production means that Nigeria will continue to rely on fuel importation.
It was gathered on Wednesday that amid Nigeria’s continued imports of refined petroleum products, its domestic refineries that would have helped refine the commodities were being starved of crude oil.
About five more modular refineries are ready to commence the production of refined petroleum products but cannot produce the commodities because of the unavailability of crude oil, according to industry sources.
Also, industry sources stated that the Dangote Refinery in Lekki, Lagos, had yet to receive the required volumes of crude oil needed to produce refined products.
On September 20, 2023, The PUNCH reported that the Dangote Petroleum Refinery was importing crude oil and expected its first cargo in about two weeks, according to the Executive Director, Dangote Group, Devakumar Edwin.
The newspaper says that the Director General of Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria, Charles Odii, has urged the Federal Government to award 25 per cent of its contracts to small and medium enterprises.
He said this is because SMEs contribute about 50 per cent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product and employ about 60 million people.
Speaking with journalists on Wednesday in Abuja, the DG said, “Government is the biggest spender; the biggest employer of labour. We want small businesses to benefit from contract awards.
“What that means, however, is that small businesses need to be well-equipped to be able to win government contracts.
“96% of businesses in Nigeria are small businesses; so it is only 4 per cent that are big.”
Odii noted that a meeting he held earlier with young legislators and small business owners was aimed at getting a first-hand view of their challenges which mostly bothered on cost and funding.
He assured them that SMEDAN would help small business owners reduce production costs.
“A lot of banks want to give funding, but they can’t give small businesses because they are not adequately structured to receive the funding.
“We shall help at least one million entrepreneurs to structure their businesses to become eligible for such funding,” he added.
The Guardian reports that many African governments are currently caught in the crisis of refining domestic debts at cut-throat costs even as they overstretch the funding capacity of their central banks to bridge the gaping hole in their finances, a situation that has left many in dire straits, a report by S&P warned yesterday.
The crisis is fuelled by the global monetary tightening that has made the global debt market inaccessible or unaffordable to many developing countries.
The Federal Reserve has raised the interest rates to a multi-decade high of 5.25-5.5 per cent with some market analysts pricing more hikes before the end of the tightening cycles.
The S&P report coincided with the second to the last meeting of the rate-fixing arm of the Federal Reserve, which ended yesterday with the prevailing interest rate left unchanged.
The report, which analysed briefly the domestic quagmire of leading African economies, including Nigeria, Egypt, Ghana among others, comes as the African biggest country’s newly-inaugurated administration struggles to keep their governance going amid daunting fiscal challenges.
Earlier, the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, told concerned Nigerians that the administration would not indulge in debt accumulation to fund its activities.
But less than three months after the assurance, they may have gone cap-in-hand in search of more loans even as foreign financiers are increasingly wary about the country’s ability to meet its obligations.
The newspaper says that Imo State was the centre of political chaos yesterday, two days after calm was restored in neighbouring Rivers State.
With about 10 days to the November 11 governorship election in the state, the whereabouts of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) president, Joe Ajaero, was for several hours, shrouded in uncertainty after he was allegedly whisked away from Owerri, where he was supposed to lead workers in a protest against the state government.
Ajaero was said to be addressing Imo workers at the NLC secretariat, when heavily armed security operatives stormed the premises, picked the labour leader and whisked him to a yet-to-be-known destination. This is even as the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Kayode Egbetokun, was in town for the retreat for Senior Police Officers at Landmark Event Centre in Owerri.
The NLC president later reemerged with a bruised and swollen face after his release by officers of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) and was rushed to the Federal Medical Centre, Owerri, for immediate medical treatment. Sources alleged that the labour leader was picked up on the orders of the governor, Hope Uzodimma, for mobilising a workers’ strike in the state.
NLC had directed workers in the state to embark on a protest to demand implementation of their demands from the state government, including appropriate payment of the minimum wage, pensions and gratuities to retirees, among other welfare packages. That was the third of such protests since Ajaero emerged NLC president in February this year.
Sequel to the notice of protest, the Imo State government, through the Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Cyprian Akaolisa, had approached the National Industrial Court of Nigeria (NICN) to issue an order stopping the action.
While a faction of NLC, chaired by Rev. Philip Nwansi, resolved not to join the protests, others assembled at the state NLC headquarters to listen to the next directive by Ajaero, before he was arrested.
Meanwhile, organs of the NLC and Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) are planning to meet to decide on the next line of action over the attack on workers.
Organised labour, in a joint statement signed by General Secretaries of the NLC and TUC, Emmanuel Ugboaja and Nuhu Toro, respectively, called on Nigerian workers, state councils and their branches to be on alert for immediate nationwide action, stating that they could not be at peace when the government of Imo State continues to disrespect workers and treat them with utter disdain.
GIK/APA