Nigeria’s multi-billion-naira fuel importation racket is facing its biggest threat yet—and the powerful cartel that has profited from it for decades is fighting back with everything it has.
“Right now, as we have this refinery working, it will show the true consumption of Nigeria,” Aliko Dangote declared last year as his $20 billion refinery began operations. “There is a lot of round-tripping where people now do documentation and the fuel does not come into Nigeria, and this is a fact.”
What Dangote was describing, in measured terms, is one of Africa’s most lucrative scams: phantom fuel imports that exist only on paper but drain billions from Nigeria’s economy.
For years, a shadowy network of marketers and traders have manipulated Nigeria’s fuel consumption figures, creating a vast difference between official import volumes and actual consumption. The game was simple but devastatingly effective—declare imports that never arrive, collect subsidy payments for ghost deliveries, and pocket enormous profits while ordinary Nigerians suffer through endless fuel queues.
The scale of the deception becomes clear when examining the contradictory figures from Nigeria’s own regulatory authorities:
“Following Mr. President’s withdrawal of subsidy on May 29th, 2023, we immediately saw a steep decline in consumption,” admitted Ogbugo Ukoha, Executive Director at the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA).
Before subsidy removal, Nigeria supposedly consumed a staggering 66 million litres daily. Afterward? The figure mysteriously dropped to around 50 million litres—a convenient 25% reduction that raises serious questions about where those extra 16 million daily litres were going during the subsidy era, if they existed at all.
Even more telling, NMDPRA Chief Executive Farouk Ahmed recently revealed that fuel importation has plummeted from 44.6 million liters daily in August 2024 to just 14.7 million litres by April 2025—a stunning 67% drop that coincides with Dangote Refinery’s increasing production.
“Ask them to state how much we consume as a nation. Let them give us the real figure. That’s what they don’t want the masses to know,” challenged a senior Dangote Refinery official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Industry insiders describe a sophisticated corruption network that has operated for decades:
- Marketers secure approval to import specific fuel volumes
- Documentation shows the fuel arriving in Nigeria
- The same fuel is “diverted” to neighbouring countries or simply never exists
- Subsidy payments flow for phantom deliveries
- Officials and marketers split the proceeds
“These people don’t care for the ordinary man. They are interested in their pockets. Many of them engaged in round-tripping during the fuel subsidy era,” revealed a Dangote Refinery source familiar with industry practices.
With the Dangote Refinery’s sophisticated tracking technology, this house of cards is collapsing. “We can track every single loaded truck, and we will try as much as possible to track the loaded ships,” Dangote has promised, a direct threat to those who have profited from Nigeria’s regulatory blindspots.
The fight has now moved to new battlegrounds. As Dangote Refinery produces 57 million litres of petrol daily—more than Nigeria’s actual consumption needs—importers are scrambling to protect their territory.
“We didn’t come out to make noise. But we’ve been bearing the brunt, just to remain sustainable and profitable,” claimed Olufemi Adewole, Executive Secretary of the Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association of Nigeria (DAPPMAN), positioning fuel importers as victims rather than beneficiaries of a corrupt system.
DAPPMAN and other marketing groups have launched a coordinated campaign claiming the Dangote Refinery doesn’t have enough capacity to meet local demands—an assertion flatly contradicted by the refinery’s production data.
“We produce more than enough fuel for the local market, and we export,” countered a senior Dangote official. “We need to ask DAPPMAN and the other marketers how they got to know the amount of stock that Dangote has. How did they arrive at the conclusion that the refinery can’t satisfy local needs?”
The Dangote Refinery’s massive storage capacity tells its own story:
- 12 tanks holding 600 million liters of petrol (18 days’ national supply)
- 17 tanks storing 408 million liters of aviation fuel (136 days’ supply)
- 14 tanks containing 340 million liters of diesel (34 days’ supply)
- 20 tanks for 2.4 billion liters of crude oil (20 days’ production)
In total, 177 tanks with 4.742 billion liters capacity stand ready—a direct challenge to the import cartel’s claims of insufficient supply.
While DAPPMAN’s Adewole dismisses allegations of a fuel import “cabal,” he acknowledges what he calls “vested interests” among private depot owners who have “invested billions of Naira over the years.”
What remains unspoken is how much of those “investments” went into creating a self-serving system that kept Nigeria dependent on imports despite having the capacity to refine its own crude oil.
“The President’s decision to ban imports is the only way we can grow the economy, but importers will do everything to ensure that the policy doesn’t succeed,” warned another Dangote source. “Why are we importing what we have locally?”
Dangote himself is under no illusions about the fight ahead. “We’re fighting, and the fight is not yet finished,” he stated recently. “But I have been fighting all my life, and I am ready and 100 percent sure I will win at the end of the day.”
With his refinery demonstrating that it can produce far beyond Nigeria’s actual needs—”The maximum local consumption is around 40 percent, but 60 percent will be exported,” according to Dangote—the days of Nigeria’s fuel import dependency appear numbered.
For ordinary Nigerians who have endured decades of artificial fuel scarcity, price manipulation, and the economic damage of a corrupt importation system, the truth emerging about actual consumption figures represents a long-overdue reckoning.
As the Dangote Refinery ramps up to its full 650,000 barrels per day capacity, Nigeria may finally see what many have long suspected: the country’s actual fuel needs are far less than the inflated figures that have enriched a powerful few at the expense of millions.
