President of the Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, says there is no justification for Nigeria’s low power generation output, arguing that if his conglomerate alone can produce over 1,500 megawatts for internal use, the country should be generating far more.

Dangote made the remarks during a recent tour of the Dangote Refinery in Lagos, where he highlighted the company’s expanding energy footprint and called for deeper private sector involvement in power generation.

According to him, Nigeria should not be grappling with 4,500 to 5,000 MW of electricity; instead, it should generate up to 60,000 MW.

“We as a company alone are producing, group-wide for our own consumption, over 1,500 MW.

So, Nigeria should not be three times what we are producing as a country. Nigeria should be at about 50,000 MW to 60,000 MW,” Dangote said.

He described what had been achieved at the refinery as proof that large-scale industrial projects were possible in Nigeria, including in the power sector.

“What we have done here just shows that there’s nothing impossible. All this can be replicated in our power sector. There’s no reason why Nigeria should be doing 5,000 MW,” he said.

The business mogul noted that building the refinery was more difficult than raising Nigeria’s power to 30,000 MW.

He added that building the country’s power infrastructure was not the exclusive responsibility of the government, pointing out that significant private sector participation was both necessary and achievable.

“What we have actually done here is much more difficult than making Nigeria 25,000 or 30,000 megawatts of power, with transmission and distribution. But it’s not the work of government alone,” he said.

He recalled that the sector had already been privatised and urged wealthy Nigerians to stop taking capital abroad and instead invest in the local economy.

He said, “We have already asked the government to leave the sector. It’s supposed to be privatised. They have privatised it.

“We, the private sector, Nigerians, most especially us, should stop taking our money abroad and invest the money here to make sure that we develop our own country and continent, because without us showing the confidence that, yes, we have confidence in our own economy and the leadership of the country, foreigners will not come.

“We know our leaders; we have confidence in them. So, that money they’re taking out of the country, they should leave it here so that it can benefit everybody.”

He linked capital flight to stunted growth, criticising those who embezzle public funds and hide them abroad instead of using them to develop the country.

He asserted, “I keep saying this: there’s nowhere that you will say that there’s no corruption. There are lots of countries that have more corruption than we do, but they are growing. Our biggest problem and challenge is that people who have stolen money have taken the money abroad.

“So, the money has no use to them; it has no use to their family because they cannot show their family that they have stolen money. And they are not investing here to grow the domestic economy.”

In the next 40 months, Dangote said he planned to become the largest fertiliser producer in the world by raising production to about 12 million tonnes.