Of Dangote, Aladekomo and Rabiu

DIALOGUE WITH NIGERIA By  AKIN OSUNTOKUN, E-mail:  akin.osuntokun@thisdaylive.com

Eighteen years ago

Shortly before leaving office in 2007, former President OlusegunObasanjo introduced a deliberate initiative to shape Nigeria’s post-transition leadership: the “Economic Drivers” and the “Bridge Builders.” After stabilising the economy and consolidating the return to civilian democratic rule, his administration sought to institutionalise a new generation of national leaders who could sustain economic growth and deepen political cohesion.

The Economic Drivers were envisioned as a curated cohort of accomplished Nigerians—entrepreneurs, innovators and sectoral leaders drawn from agriculture, information and communications technology, manufacturing, and services—who would be groomed to become the engine of the national economy. The goal was to identify talent across the economic spectrum, support their development, and entrust them with responsibilities that would catalyse investment, job creation and long-term productivity growth.

Complementing this was the Bridge Builders concept: a parallel group drawn from the sociopolitical elite charged with fostering national integration and advancing democratic governance. Bridge Builders were expected to use their networks, influence and leadership skills to promote dialogue across ethnic, regional and political lines, helping to stabilise the polity and create a more inclusive public sphere.

Taken together, the two programmes represented an attempt to consciously crystallise a constructive power elite for Nigeria—one leg focused on generating economic momentum, the other on consolidating social and political cohesion. If successfully implemented, the approach promised synergies: economic modernization reinforced by stronger civic institutions and cross-cutting social bonds.

This initiative highlights a strategic recognition that sustainable development depends not only on macroeconomic policy but also on leadership development and elite formation. By investing in a pipeline of capable leaders across both economic and political domains, the project aimed to create a durable foundation for progress. The success of such a programme would ultimately depend on transparent selection processes, broad-based inclusion, ongoing capacity building, and safeguards to ensure accountability and prevent capture or exclusionary concentration of power.

C. Wright Mills famously asked, “Who, after all, runs America?” His answer — that, while no single person runs the country, a “power elite” effectively shapes its direction — has useful purchase beyond the United States. The underlying presupposition is that a dominant elite will act in its enlightened self interest, and that this interest can overlap substantially with the long term public good. Translating that insight to Nigeria prompts a search for institutions and initiatives that deliberately cultivate leaders whose private capacities serve public ends.

Two enduring Nigerian instruments in this regard are the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) and the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS). Both were created to develop national cohesion, leadership capacity and a policy oriented elite capable of navigating the country’s complex social and strategic challenges.

Both institutions operate as adjuncts to efforts — such as the Economic Drivers and Bridge Builders initiative — aimed at shaping a constructive power elite: Economic Drivers cultivate entrepreneurial and sectoral leaders to propel growth; Bridge Builders strengthen the sociopolitical leadership needed to deepen integration and democratic governance.

The stories of contemporary Nigerian entrepreneurs and leaders — exemplified in the experiences, triumphs and tribulations of figures such as Dangote, Aladekomo and Rabiu — illustrate the promise and the perils of elite formation.Their achievements demonstrate how individual initiative can drive industrialization, job creation and innovation. At the same time, their challenges underscore persistent issues: regulatory hurdles and vulnerability to demonisation.

Viewed together, Mills’s insight and Nigeria’s institutional experiments point to a strategic truth: sustainable development depends not only on policies and resources but on consciously cultivating leaders who can translate private capacity into public value. NYSC and NIPSS — alongside intentional initiatives to groom Economic Drivers and Bridge Builders — remain vital instruments for achieving that end.

Ten years ago

In a graphic illustration of attendant tribulation, Aladekomo of CHAMS PLC lamented in August 2015, “A nation that kills its own. Today is a sad day for entrepreneurship\innovation as we close down the last of the 4 ChamsCities at Ikeja that got Nigeria into the Guinness book of records because my government could not protect Chams PLC from the onslaught of NIMC management on National ID. Shareholders’ N9.2billion wasted for pecuniary interests of converting a concession to contracts. May God help Nigeria, we tried, we begged, we did our best….Obasanjo gave us the National ID concession in May 2007 for us to implement using our own funds and issue cards to qualified Nigerians by 2009. Based on that we started implementation in 2007 by building the 4 ChamCities in Abuja, Lagos, Benin and Port Harcourt out of the scheduled 29 round the country”.

“The ChamCities each had 1000 computers minimum so Nigerians can register for their National ID conveniently as we had a 10-year concession. We also designed mini ChamCities for all Local governments. We also built Africa’s largest Card plant in Abuja to do 1.75million cards a day because we were to produce 100million cards. We built a transaction switch, ChamsSwitch chaired by Chief JO Sanusi former CBN governor. NIMC did not sign the concession agreement until July 23rd 2010, deliberately frustrating us. By 2012 they collected N30billion from the government saying we cannot implement. Then they stole my Card design, stole my technical partners and staff. Because we ran out of cash as we were not making money, we started closing down the card plant, ChamsSwitch and ChamsCities”

With this at the back of my mind

I went back to take another look at the reader’s reaction to the commendation I wrote for BUA cement at the commissioning of the BUA cement factory in Sokoto two years ago. It was uniformly negative and a demonstration of the ambiguous disposition of the Nigerian intelligentsia towards the role of individual entrepreneurs in national development

Today

‘What is unfolding at the Dangote Refinery goes far beyond routine union disputes. The conflict has progressed in waves: first NNPC, then the NLC, followed by NUPENG, and now PENGASSAN. Each confrontation is revealing a deeper, more complex battle over who controls Nigeria’s oil industry and how its benefits are distributed’.

‘NNPC resisted Dangote’s entry into refining — disputing pricing, the currency for crude purchases, distribution and pump prices — because Dangote’s success showed that refineries can work in Nigeria, something NNPC has failed to do despite massive spending and years of mismanagement. The EFCC is trying to recover large sums allegedly lost under the immediate past NNPC MD, MeleKyari. At one point NNPC pushed Dangote to import crude in dollars, which raised pump prices, until the Federal Government directed that NNPC accept naira for crude purchases from Dangote’.

‘The labour unions soon became involved. The state NLC objected when Dangote recruited security guards from Katsina — a common practice in the industry where northerners are often employed as dependable guards — raising alarms that northern “bandits” were being brought into Lagos. This concern persisted despite vetting by the police, DSS and NSCDC. Ironically, similar patterns occur elsewhere: for example, Ashaka Cement in Gombe has many senior staff from the South West, yet local NLC branches did not object’.

‘Accusations of large-scale corruption and extortion have also surfaced. Femi Otedola has claimed that around 2 trillion naira was siphoned from depots through collusion with unions and other stakeholders. Dangote alleges that unions collect 50,000 naira for every truck that loads product from depots — a cost that ultimately inflates pump prices. If true, with thousands of truck movements a month, the sums involved would be substantial’.

‘Many see NUPENG and PENGASSAN as central to the longstanding dysfunction in Nigeria’s oil sector — silent for years on the failure of national refineries, but now aggressively opposing a private refinery that supplies products to other African countries’.

My permanent response 

There would be protestations that in growing their business empire, Rabiu and Dangote have enjoyed concessions and other official preferments but so do others who did not commit to a tough similar call of a boots on the ground industrialisation drive. My inflexibility on the genuine efforts of practical Nigerian investors is founded on a principled and intellectual premise. Both Karl Marx and Max Webber, the theoretically divergent Marxists and Capitalists school of thought are agreed as to the precursor and causation of capitalist development; the former negatively so and the latter positively. The Marxists assert that progression to capitalist development is necessarily preceded by the utilisation of the proceeds of ‘primitive accumulation of capital’ to birth and grow industrialisation.

In the cultural origins of capitalism, Webber argues that capitalism is rooted in the cultural mentality that deems wealth creation as a vocation, a calling and specifically, the protestant ethic. In general terms and in my understanding, the human agent of capitalism is (in the idiom of post-modernism) the professional investor-who, beyond the material gratification of business returns, finds ultimate satisfaction in creating wealth as an end in itself. The positive Nigeria that is struggling to be born is that in which the many contemporaries of Dangote (who likewise acquire considerable resources from the primitive accumulation stage of Nigeria’s capitalist development) should equally embark on profitably ploughing back the accumulated capital into Nigeria’s economy.

Postscript

Former President OlusegunObasanjo, on Wednesday, 8th October 2025, disclosed how he helped Africa’s richest man, AlikoDangote to make it in business. Obasanjo disclosed that after creating an enabling environment to ensure that Dangote built his cement factory in Nigeria, he took him to Tanzania, Senegal, and other African countries. Speaking at the Bauchi State economic and investment summit, Obasanjo stressed the need for public, private sector partnership.

He said: “So Aliko then planned to produce 5 million tons of cement a year. Since we started producing cement in 1956 up to 2003, we’ve never produced 5 million tons. “So when Aliko made that projection, the people in the ministry said he was telling a lie. He wants to be making it up. I said alright, let’s see how his lie will work. “So I put two people on Aliko’s construction site and they are reporting to me every day. The day Aliko the contractor did not work, they will phone and tell me. And I will immediately phone Aliko.

“Not only did Aliko succeed in the first 5 million, he succeeded in the second 5 million. He succeeded in the third 5 million. I started taking him out to other countries in Africa. “I took him to Tanzania. I took him to Senegal. That’s how Aliko made it. Partnership between the private and the public. Partnership between leadership at every level.”