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Africa’s richest man Aliko Dangote said on Thursday that rising oil prices driven by the Strait of Hormuz blockade are threatening to devastate African airlines and farmers.
“The majority of African airlines won’t be able to survive” the current surge in fuel prices, Dangote warned, noting that Nigerian carriers have already announced they would suspend operations by April 20 if prices are not reduced. “Between morning and night, you see the oil moving up and down $10. I’ve never seen it like that. Never.”
He was equally stark about fertilizer, saying that two months ago it was selling for about $400 and today at $850. “This farming season the governments have to actually give subsidies,” he told Semafor World Economy in Washington, DC.
Dangote said a best-case scenario would be a US-Iran agreement to ease fears over the fate of the critical Hormuz waterway. But he cautioned that even a deal would leave “another two, three months before we go back to normal” due to supply chain backlogs.
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Dangote’s comments came as the World Bank quietly deleted an April policy update recommending Nigeria reopen petrol imports — a report that had drawn fierce pushback from Dangote, whose 650,000-barrel-per-day refinery has become Nigeria’s dominant fuel supplier since import licences stopped being issued earlier this year.
Dangote also used the forum to push back on pessimism about African self-reliance. “If we don’t commit our own funds to develop our continent, nobody will do that for us,” he said.