At the inception of mobile telephony in Nigeria, the foreign operators came out with their Shylock knives ready to cut a huge chunk of flesh from Nigerians. Aided and abetted by their local collaborators in the name of regulatory agencies, they came out with the most outlandish business models never known to have been applied anywhere in the world where they had presence either previously or at the same time with Nigeria.

For several months, they held everyone by the jugular and applied pressures and more pressures in a vice grip that ostensibly achieved more in asphyxiating the very people they were supposed to be serving and making their lives better, than provide the succour, as they saw people in neighbouring countries enjoying.

Indeed, Nigerians had welcomed the advent of these entities, after months of dilly-dallying, shillyshallying and vacillation, as the remedy from the decades of equally harrowing experiences from the hitherto government-owned entities, particularly the now godforsaken Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL).

They simply wanted to be like their neighbours. Recall that by this time, countries like Togo, Benin Republic, Ghana and others, were already enjoying the services and Nigerians, who went there could not wait to enjoy the same experiences, which many of them could not finish describing, while wondering why their own country, the giant of Africa should not be the first.

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It eventually came. But, alas! What did it bring along? Excruciating pains, loads of tears, mindless exploitation – obstacles, frustrations and sorrow! To buy a simple SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) card, they had to stand for hours to pay with all the shenanigans by bank staff, then affidavits from the courts, where they contended with a separate set of mischiefs. That was before they could pay N25,000 asking price.

After that came the real exploitation. Every call made or received generated N50 charge, including drop calls. Even just hello, that lasted for less than a minute, attracted the same rate, while text messages cost N15. Nigerians cried out. They protested, they remonstrated, they prostrated, they begged. But the merciless shylocks in the names of MTN and ECONET, never budged.

Attempts to coopt the regulatory agencies into the campaign to redeem the situation, were futile. Bodies like the National Communications Commission (NCC), that were supposed to call the companies to order, simply shut their doors against the faces of the complainants. In fact, they even had more explanations to offer on why there could not be any succour for anybody.

That was before the advent of Globacom, the Nigerian player owned by Mike Adenuga. A few months after the company entered the scene, the story changed completely. First, the company in a sharp contrast to what it meant, announced per minute billing in the rate of the making calls. Suddenly all the argument that it was not possible offered by the companies, the government and the scores of enablers who occupied the media space, explaining the bizarre cost model, were thrown into the dustbin as everyone quickly adjusted.

Imagine what the situation would have been today if Globacom did not change the narrative. In 2001, when a SIM card was N25,000, Naira was just N104 to a dollar. Today the same Naira is N1,500, meaning that the same SIM card would have been going for between N360,000 to N400,000, ceteris paribus – because no one knows what other charges could have been unleashed on the way, while the cost of making and receiving calls, could have jumped to N2,000. But picture the situation today – all because of one man and his initiative to save his country.

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Pan to 2024, about two decades after. The country has descended into a similar situation once again. The evil forces which drove the telecoms argument, are it once again, telling the same story – it is not possible. Some people had actually argued that if they had ever guessed that Adenuga and his people would pull the rug off their feet by crashing the cost of telecoms, they would have done everything in their powers to sabotage his entry into the market, just as they have successfully done with the pay television market, where Nigeria is the only country where the cost of DSTV is fixed, rather than pay as you view as in other environments.

Their next victim today is Dangote. The richest man in Africa is currently running from pillar to post trying to save his $20billion investment. His Dangote Refinery at the Lekki Free Trade Zone in Lagos, is under heavy threat of being wound up as the hounds harry him by the day and haunt him at night, all because he dared enter a forbidden territory.

On Wednesday, July 19, Farouk Ahmed Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (MDPRA), came out with a damning report, that akin to the deadly hammer-blow with which the Jews nailed Jesus Christ to the cross some 2,000 years ago. He told a totally confounded audience that the refinery was not even half-way complete, revealing that the company had done only done 45 per cent.

He did not stop there. Not only he reveal that seemed the strange claim that the company, which was inaugurated in 2023, by then President Muhammadu Buhari, with many world leaders in attendance, and billions of eyes glued to the event, as the ceremony was beamed live to the world, had not been licensed, he also talked about how the 650-barrel per day capacity refinery, reputed to be among the best in the world with the biggest chain in Africa, was producing substandard products.

Hear him: “Well, just like you rightly asked, there are lots of concerns about the supply of petroleum products nationwide and the claims by some media houses that we were trying to scuttle the Dangote refinery; that is not so. Dangote refinery is still in the pre-commissioning stage. It has not been licenced yet. We have not licensed them yet. I think they are at about 45 per cent completion. So we cannot rely heavily on one refinery to feed the nation because Dangote is requesting that we should suspend or stop all importation of petroleum products, especially automotive gas oil (AGO) or jet kero and direct all marketers to the refinery.

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“So, in terms of quality, currently, the AGO quality in terms of sulphur is the lowest as far as West Africa’s requirement of 50 parts per million (ppm). Dangote refinery, as well as some major refineries like Waltersmith refinery, produce between 650 ppm to 1,200 ppm. So, in terms of quality, their quality is much more inferior to the imported quality.”

Ahmed’s demining comments was obviously a clapback to Dangote’s consistent outcries in recent days that the International Oil Companies (IOCs) were frustrating the operations of the refinery, by refusing to sell crude to them. But on what grounds did he stand to make those heavy declarations? What keen observers have unearthed about him, indicates that the MDPRA boss is not smelling roses.

For instance, in February 2024, the same Ahmed had his feet on fire, for his role in the importation of adulterated Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) into the country. Nigerians have since dug up this report to indicate that the same man speaking about bad product, had no moral justification to do so.

In fact, that the same man even favours continuous importation of fuel, seen as the source of the scarcity of foreign exchange in the country that has given birth to the biting hunger in the land, over local production, actually tells where he is coming from. Only an agent of the vested interests, which has held Nigeria hostage over the years, could toe that path.

Of course, Dangote, has since pushed back against the obtuse arguments by the MDPRA boss and the tendency he represents. On Saturday, while conducting members of the House of Representatives round the facility, he took time to answer all the questions raised, which practically put a lie to all the allegations. He even went ahead to conduct a test on the products with samples obtained from the local filling stations and the one produced in his refinery to prove same.

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Aliko Dangote, President of the Dangote Group, even pushed further by accusing the regulators of underhand practice, when he told his visitors: “The most important thing, is to note that the imported one they are encouraging, is the spec in test, but in certain cases when you check (independently), different results will show. This is because those people who have the lab have been told what to write. The best way to determine the quality of products being imported and sold to Nigerians is by going to the filling stations, buying and testing them.”

Now the challenge has been thrown, Nigerians are watching Ahmed and group would accept it. Incidentally, these are the same people under whom more than half of crude oil produced in the country disappear into thin air and their proceeds end up in private pockets.

These are the same people that have kept the government-owned refineries comatose for more than three decades – the same people drawing billions of Naira in salaries and allowances without producing a single drop of fuel – the same people who could not prevent hundreds of tankers carrying cheap fuel on which subsidy has been paid from escaping into neighbouring countries to empty their contents in their filling stations.

No doubt, Dangote is the only hope presently to replicate what Globacom and Adenuga did in the telecoms industry in the petroleum sector. A success of his current effort could trigger off many more private entities coming on stream, which would obviously lead to competition and lower prices.

Unfortunately, not every government is like that of President Olusegun Obasanjo, which not only gave them the platform, but the protection against the hounds that are after Dangote today. Unlike that era, today presents a completely different scenario where a set of complacent, indolent, if not vindictive government is either looking away while the predators circle around but are actually enabling them to attack.

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As Dangote himself observed recently, no African country has been able to build a refinery in the last 35 years due to the evil hands of the cabal outside the shores of the continent. Therefore, it is clear to him from whence his travails are coming. Just like in the telecoms, they foreign enemies but with local collaborators. But their success or failure depends on how Dangote relents or fights on to defeat them. It may be more difficult now, but like Adenuga and Globacom, triumphed over them, he too, could.