The Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise (CPPE) has rejected attempts to label Dangote Refinery a monopolistic threat, warning that using such arguments to promote wider fuel import liberalisation could push Nigeria towards deindustrialisation.
In a statement titled “Import Liberalisation and the Risk of Deindustrialisation in Nigeria,” CPPE Chief Executive Officer, Dr Muda Yusuf, said Nigeria should be strengthening local refining capacity, not encouraging policies that weaken domestic production.
“Attempts to portray Dangote Refinery as a monopolistic threat are simplistic, fundamentally flawed and grossly unfair. It did not cause the collapse of state-owned refineries. It simply undertook an extraordinary industrial investment at a scale unprecedented in Africa,” Yusuf said.
He argued that scale should not be criminalised, noting that competition should come through new local investments rather than unrestricted imports. “Nigeria should not demonise audacious investment, industrial courage, scale and risk appetite. A country that undermines transformative investment sends deeply troubling signals to both domestic and foreign investors,” he stated.
The CPPE warned that indiscriminate import liberalisation had previously contributed to the decline of Nigerian industries including textiles, tyre manufacturing, automobile assembly and pharmaceuticals, stressing that local firms often struggled under high energy costs, weak infrastructure and multiple regulatory burdens.
Yusuf also cautioned against exposing the refining sector to the same policy mistakes seen in food imports and broader trade liberalisation. “Trade liberalisation without competitiveness is not integration; it is deindustrialisation,” he said.
He added: “No economy becomes prosperous by importing what it can produce domestically. The future of Nigeria’s economic resilience lies in production, refining, manufacturing and value addition and not in the perpetuation of import dependence.”
According to Yusuf, energy security remains inseparable from national security, insisting that Nigeria must decide whether to build a production-driven economy or remain trapped in import dependence.