Dangote: How Indians pillage Nigeria through one of its own citizens [Editorial]
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The Chairman/CEO of Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, has recently engaged 11,000 workers from India to work in his refinery which was commissioned hours before former President Muhammadu Buhari relinquished power on May 29, 2023.
Explaining his choice of Indians over and above his kits and kins, Alhaji Dangote said that the reason for the neglect was that youths from Nigeria lacked the adequate skills required to be engaged.
Observers have noted with dissatisfaction Dangote’s choice and queried his decision not to employ Nigerian and African youths in the refinery, rather Indians.
Besides the employment or non-employment thereof, the billionaire businessman seems not to realise that Indians are pillaging Nigeria through him.
According to reports, they are everywhere in his company doing all manner of jobs, even menial ones, while blaming it on the absence of National Occupational Standards in many countries.
One such observer, who spoke anonymously, said: “It is such a shame his Indian managers are using these laborers to pack our foreign exchange out.
“The disrespect and treatment of Nigerians as slaves in their own country by someone who is a beneficiary of government’s benevolence is unimaginable.
“One can only imagine the level of pillaging happening with these Indians everywhere.
“Let’s just say Dangote established all those companies with our money for Indians to benefit from.
“Most times, these Indians are as much as seven deep in a department!”
Another practice which has been observed going on in the refinery is the criminal underpricing of Nigerian local contractors.
According to a source, Dangote’s beloved Indians are edging Nigerian contractors out by underpricing and frustrating them out.
The source explained that they will make unreasonable and unacceptable offer to Nigerian contractors and wait for them to reject them.
As soon as they do, they then turn around and give the same contract to their Indian competitors at much higher rates than were offered the Nigerian contractors in the first place.
The source lamented: “Something really has to change; these Indians and Chinese conglomerates are being used to hollow out our commonwealth.
“It is time someone brings it to the attention of Dangote that he is building all these companies to employ Indian workers and not Nigerians.
“He cannot be getting all the tax breaks, waivers and Forex only to turn around and give everything to the Indians,” he added.
On its part, a group, the Sub-Saharan African Skills and Apprenticeship Stakeholders Network (SASASNET), thinks that this is a wake-up call to Nigerian stakeholders in particular, and African stakeholders in general.
Speaking in a communiqué issued at the end of its two-day meeting in Abuja on July 26, 2023, the Secretary-General of SASASNET, Ousman Sillah, explained that the reason for the neglect was that youths from Nigeria lacked the requisite skills to be engaged.
The network noted that it had resolved that each country in Africa develop a national skills qualification framework that will enable ease of labour migration across the continent.
Sillah said: “There is need for SASASNET to engage in vigorous public awareness and engagement to change the negative perception of the public on the value of skills and apprenticeship.
“The Dangote Refinery in Nigeria under construction has engaged over 11,000 work force from India, while our youths lack the required skills to be engaged.”
He, therefore, called on Africa leaders to avoid a repeat of the same in the upcoming $25 billion Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline traversing the Gulf of Guinea to Europe.
This, however, is not the first time that Dangote will kick the butt of Nigerians and his Nigerian competitors, even well-established companies and industrialists.
A peep into the antecedents of Dangote will suffice…
When former President Olusegun encouraged local production of cement, the Managing Director of Ibeto Cement Factory, Nnewi-born billionaire businessman, Chief Cletus Ibeto, promised to flood Nigerian market with cement and drastically reduce the price of the product.
Ibeto fulfilled his promise and flooded the country with higher quality cement, crashing the price of cement in the process.
The development jolted Dangote and his cement business was adversely affected, and without wasting time, he rolled his sleeves.
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The business mogul wrote a petition to former President Obasanjo, kicking against the authority the federal government granted Ibeto to import 800,000 metric tons of cement.
Obasanjo immediately issued a directive, stating that Ibeto was not allowed to import cement into the country until it proved its investment in local production.
Thousands of staff of Ibeto cement were rendered jobless, while Dangote and his firms thrived!
When late President Umaru Yar’ Adua succeeded Obasanjo, Ibeto applied for import allocation on July 2007 and it was granted and he quickly flooded the country with quality cement, and the prices crashed.
Once again, Dangote quickly filed a suit alleging that Ibeto Cement Company is gaining undue advantage by the federal government.
On its part, the government contended that Dangote Cement PLC is plotting to wipe out fair competition and create a monopoly in the industry and transform itself to the only cock that crows in Nigeria.
The tug-of-war continued while former President Goodluck Jonathan was at the helm of affairs until former President Muhammadu Buhari came to power.
Ibeto Company applied for foreign exchange from the CBN but was denied. Dangote applied and was granted. He has continued to enjoy all manner of waiver.
Like Dangote did during the Obasanjo regime, he was said to have approached his Fulani brother. Buhari banned Ibeto cement because they are afraid of competition from a south eastern lgbo man who comes from the wrong part of the country.
Read the full story below:
Dangote’s Government Waivers And The Sins Of Ibeto
Next came Innoson.
As soon as another Nnewi-born billionaire businessman Chief Innocent Chukwuma Ifediaso rolled out his brand of vehicles popularly known as Innoson Vehicles Manufacturing Company (IVM Motors), Dangote became restless.
Before long, he flung open a Peugeot Assembly Plant in Kaduna to showcase made in France product which he had obtained the franchise.
To make that monopoly so effective, however, he must have to “kill Innoson brand by fire by force”.
Read the narration by Mazi Odera below:
INNOSON: Killing Igbo Business With Federal Might
The billionaire chairman of Dangote Group, however, did not limit his violent romance to Nnewi businessmen as another northern billionaire businessmen Samad Rabiu has tasted his bitter pill.
Read also:
Dangote petitions Trade Ministry, wants BUA Sugar Refinery shut down
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