Africa’s richest man and billionaire, Aliko Dangote, has revealed that unstable electricity supply and inconsistencies in government policies have remained the major problems for advancing industrialisation in Nigeria.
Dangote made this known when the Zambian Minister of Energy, Makozo Chikote, visited the Dangote refinery in Lekki, Lagos State.
According to him, his company’s most profitable cement factory is the one in Ethiopia because of its stable power supply.
He explained that without power supply, businesses cannot grow.
“If there’s no power, there won’t be growth. For example, anything I’m going to do abroad will cost me maybe 30 percent cheaper than here, because abroad is plug-and-play.
“You just go, no infrastructure construction. You just build a factory, and you connect to the network; that’s all.
“That’s why, if you look at it today, I tell you that our most profitable cement factory is in Ethiopia because there’s no investment in power. They gave us power at the same rate for five years. So, we plan, It’s a one-price electricity continuously.
“One of the problems of industrialisation is inconsistencies in government policies, where, just like a footballer, you’re about to score the goal, and the government will remove the goalpost and point behind you that the goalpost is behind. So, you have to now turn. Once you turn back, you have a lot of challenges to get to that goalpost again,” he stated.