Aliko Dangote, foremost business man and richest man in Africa, has said that the federal government should stop giving out bailout to states, insisting that states should sit down and plan to cut cost instead of looking for bailout and being lazy.
Dangote said states can create jobs and give incentives to people to come and invest, saying “they should assure people that they are not going to be slammed with various taxes which is what some of them do.’’
He spoke on Friday, April 22, 2016, in Lagos when he was honoured as “Man of the Year 2015 by the Guardian Newspapers.
He said the current situation of the economy would push people to work harder, to work in terms of diversifying the economy.
Dangote said he would work with his company to take Nigeria out of the present economic quagmire and restore the country’s economy to where it ought to be.
According to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Dangote said within two and half years, Nigeria was going to excel in the critical areas of the economy.
“We want to do that by looking at critical areas where Nigeria is not doing well in terms of local production and tackle the problem areas.
“Number one is refinery, Dangote Group is building a refinery which will produce 650,000 barrels of petrol per day; the current capacity that we have as a country now, both the ones that are working and the ones not working, is just 450,000 barrels per day.
“Our petrochemical is ten times that of Eleme, we are at 1.3 million, Eleme is 120,000, so it will be the largest petrochemical industry in Africa.
“In fertilizer production, we are not only trying to satisfy the market, but our size is three million tonnes which is ten times more than what is available in Nigeria today.
“We are trying to make sure we satisfy the local needs and also export and we thought about how to address our power issues, the only way we can address power issues is to have enough gas and sort out distribution.
“Distribution is important because unless you collect money from the consumers, you cannot grow.
“There are two sub-sea gas pipelines coming from Bonny which will produce about three billion volume of gas which is exactly about the same size of LNG.
“We are committed to turning around the economy of Nigeria and in the next two and a half years, Nigeria will be the highest oil petroleum products export country, will be the highest in terms of fertilizer export, will be the highest in petrochemicals export.
“Nigeria will also be the highest in terms of cement export in Africa,’’ he said
