President of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, has credited the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi, with making the construction of his multi-billion-dollar refinery possible by intervening to remove 19 shrines from the project site.
Speaking in a video shared by The Cable via X on Friday, the billionaire industrialist revealed that construction workers were unable to proceed with the project in Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos, due to the presence of numerous shrines.
Dangote said, “I must recognise and thank the Ooni of Ife for enabling the building of our factory. What happened was that when we got there, there were over 19 shrines at the site. Nobody was able to go near there to do anything.”
The business mogul explained that the traditional ruler personally visited the site and boldly ordered the removal of all the shrines, despite the spiritual implications.
“But Ooni went there, stood there and said ‘remove all of them. Let the gods come and talk to me’. Your Royal Majesty, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart because without that singular act of yours, I don’t think we would have been able to build the refinery,” Dangote stated.
The Dangote Refinery, located in the Dangote Industries Free Zone in Ibeju-Lekki, is the world’s largest single-train refinery with a capacity of 650,000 barrels per day.
The industrialist had earlier disclosed that he paid $100 million to the Lagos State Government for the massive land, but construction faced significant delays due to community issues surrounding the shrines.
The refinery, which began operations in 2024, is expected to transform Nigeria’s petroleum sector by ending decades of fuel importation and creating thousands of jobs for Nigeria.
