I don’t know how many readers saw the video of the birthday cake of Africa’s richest man but it went viral enough. It was a replica of his refinery, the world’s largest single train refinery which finally came on stream last year after daunting setbacks.

I don’t know much about cake baking, and I know cakes can sometimes be used to tell a story, but the hands that made this cake – if it was indeed a cake – must be experienced, yet delicate and refined to have captured the refinery so succinctly. Again I don’t know much about Artificial Intelligence and the cake could easily have been AI generated.

But whichever it was and however it was made, what we saw in the video as a cake was a fitting tribute to one man’s vision and daring. Alhaji Aliko Dangote is a colossus and I don’t mean it in the way newspaper adverts generously use the word. Many people mouth patriotism. A few act it. Dangote belongs to the latter. 

A few years ago, Dangote’s MD, the late Engineer Makoju gave a talk at the Ikoyi Club to mark the club’s landmark anniversary. I was amazed at the tentacles and reach of Dangote Industries in Nigeria’s consumer space. I can only adduce this to patriotism knowing how difficult it is to run businesses in Nigeria.

There are a thousand and one ways for a rich man to make more money instead of investing in production in Nigeria and I am sure Dangote knows many of them. That he keeps sticking his neck out must be intentional. It is probably born out of patriotism coupled with his belief in the potential and future of the country.

There are also a thousand and one ways for a wealthy man in Nigeria to spend money and I am sure Dangote has people who indulge in many of them. But he seems to have shunned the typical lifestyle of the rich. He is not known for a gaudy display of wealth, he is not known to be a womanizer, he is not known to belong to any Jet-set. He marked his 68th birthday in the simplest of ways with close and meaningful associates according to what we saw in the social media.  

  I don’t know if it was coincidental, but the recent Naira for Crude approval by the new powers that be at NNPC must be a good birthday present for him. I have always wondered why the deal was paused in the first instance. I have wondered why a country would still prefer to export raw materials and import finished products when there is a homegrown alternative which, from the look of things, is even of a better quality.

I have wondered at the impediments being strewn along the path of an investor’s bold attempt to solve Nigeria’s fuel and petro-chemical challenges.  I have wondered at the message being sent out to potential investors. If the system could so frustrate its own as powerful and as connected as Dangote is, then what chance does a foreigner have?

20 billion dollars is a lot of money from a single investor and the way Dangote Refinery is treated will either encourage or discourage other would-be investors. I was so concerned that I once cornered a former major player in the oil industry in church after a mid-day service. He was also coincidentally, a former Chairman of NNPC. His argument was that the industry must be fair to all stakeholders many of whom had invested a lot into the downstream sector. He also raised the fear of a single player having so much leverage that he dictates the tune.

Having leverage and wanting to dictate the tune in whatever market he operates in is a major grouse against Dangote. Another major grouse is that he is allegedly ruthless with whoever is making forays into his area of operation. This makes me recall an incident that happened over thirty years ago. I met a young man in the office of a top official at Cadbury. He was a smart, likeable person and we developed a relationship. He was into sugar business. 

I was worried for him after a while and told him so. He laughed it off saying the sugar market was big enough for everybody. He was nimble and strategic as he gradually made an inroad into the major sugar consumers. Then he started having niggling problems here and there, especially with shipping and at the ports. I was in his office the day he received a phone call from his major bank demanding a liquidation of his overdraft. When he protested, he was told it was an order from the very top. 

The young man reviewed what had been happening to him over the months, connected some dots and came to the conclusion that some people believed he had to be cut to size. We guessed who the big masquerade behind his problems was. In fairness, businesses can be cut throat and many businessmen will use all means, fair and foul, to increase their market share. It is left for the regulatory authorities to ensure a level playing field in addition to, in the case of the downstream sector, making sure that other refineries are operational and competitive.

Another allegation against Dangote is that he gets concessions and undue advantages over competition. Again, most of those so called competitions don’t invest beyond warehouse space. And their workforce is limited to marketers and managers. My opinion is that given the harsh operating climate in Nigeria which favours importation over production, those who want to invest in Nigeria need concessions and waivers to have any chance of surviving against importers. Again, it is left to the authorities to ensure a level playing field.

Whatever naysayers put out, the fact is that Dangote at 68, has done well for himself and for his country if not continent. He has come a long way from his hustling years in Surulere, Lagos. The late MKO Abiola once said to me in a private conversation ‘it’s not just about having money – many people have that, and some more than me – it is what you do with it that matters’. Many have had the concessions Dangote had and came up empty.

Many have benefited immensely from politics and the rent seeking economy Nigeria is famous for without doing anything to make the country self-sufficient. Dangote has been intentional about his areas of business venture and we must give kudos to him. He is still relatively young, but if he died today, he would have lived a much more fulfilled life than many who have used their breaks in life to amass humongous wealth without adding any meaningful value to society.