A Year of Corporate War of Attrition

For foremost industrialist, Aliko Dangote, 2017 has been another good year in terms of expansion of his business tentacles to other parts of Africa. From Ethiopia to Ghana, from Zambia to Kenya, the name Dangote continues to reverberate across Africa as the man behind cement revolution which is spreading further on the continent. And he is even going beyond that. In a daring diversification into the capital-intensive oil and gas sector, Dangote’s multibillion-dollar petrochemical company is nearing completion. When completed, it will be able to refine close to 600,000 barrels of crude oil per day. And he will be the largest individual investor in that sector in the whole of Africa.

As laudable as 2017 has been for Dangote, it has been the year when he has been at attritional corporate loggerheads with fellow Kano man, Abdulsamad Rabiu, over the mining site located at the boundary town of Oguda/Ubo in Okene, Kogi State. Dangote is claiming that the site with Mining Lease number 2541 belongs to it and as recent as December 18 this year, Dangote Group still accused BUA of carrying out illegal mining on the site.

In another breath, BUA Group accused the Dangote Group of conniving with top officials of the Ministry of Mines and Power to sabotage its operations at Okpella in Edo State. The Group wrote an open letter to President Muhammadu Buhari over the matter. The move by the Dangote Group, according to BUA, was despite the fact that the matter was pending before a Federal High Court and the hearing was slated for December 5 and 6, 2017. The BUA Group claimed the factory was worth over a billion dollars and accused Dangote Group of seeking to control cement production and sales in the country.

According to sources, Dangote is said to be unhappy with BUA over the latter’s attempts to crash the prices of cement and thereby break the vice-like grip that Dangote has on the market. And BUA claimed the era of monopoly has gone – and gone for good.

While the battle promises to rage on in 2018, it is obvious that 2017 has seen these two giants being at loggerheads than being partners in progress.