Former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan begged Aliko Dangote to go into oil refining but he refused - Reno Omokri alleges

 

Former presidential aide Reno Omokri has revealed that

former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan appealed to the richest man in Africa to go into investing in Power generating and oil sectors.

Taking to his X page on Wednesday 24th July, 2024, to share his thoughts on the recent outstanding between the Nigerian regulatory body and Dangote, Omokri claims that Dangote declined Jonathan's request.

According to the PDP chieftain, the former President had promised to support Dangote in the Oil business when he intervened in the dispute between Dangote and Cetus Ibeto, the head of Ibeto Group.

Reno Omokri wrote, "The waivers granted by Jonathan administration to the Dangote Group enabled Nigeria to achieve backward integration in cement production to the extent that we went from a cement importing country to a cement exporting nation.

I was physically present at the presidential villa on Friday, 14th October, 2011, when then President Jonathan begged Aliko Dangote to go into oil refining and power generation, to which Mr Dangote Vehemently refused and said that if he did, Nigerians would accuse him of monopoly.

There had earlier been a shouting match between Mr Dangote and Mr Cletus Ibeto, were they accused each other of underhand business dealings, and the atmosphere was tense.

 President Jonathan intervened to calm nerves and later appealed to Mr Dangote to reconsider his stance, stating that the government would help him expand and create Job opportunities for Nigerians. We have video footage of that event.

As a result of the waivers our administration granted to Dangote's group, they expanded and employed additional 15,000 Nigerians.

Former President Jonathan was Nigeria's most SME focused leader.

Through the Youth With Innovation in Nigeria (YouWin) initiative, he gave almost 4000 Nigerians an average of $50,000 to start Small and Medium Scale businesses. Many got more than $50,000. Please note that this were grants not loans.

In other words, the Federal Government 'dashed' them the money, to use a local parlance. He not only gave them grants, but our government insisted that they take business courses from consultants hired by the federal government.

YouWin, according to the World Bank, was the world's most successful government-run business entrepreneurial scheme, which according to the World Bank, was two and a half times more effective than Mexico's similar youth job initiative and ten times more effective than Turkey's own version.

So, it is inaccurate to say that small businesses suffered under the Jonathan administration. Let us look beyond our opinions to data from the World Bank and the National Bureau of statistics.

Nigeria's economy doubled under Jonathan and went from a GDP of $270 to $510 billion in 2014. Making it the largest economy in Africa, because SME's were thriving and constituted 11% of  our GDP

Other schemes of the Jonathan era, such as the Nagropreneur, Graduate internship scheme and SURE-P, and the e-wallet scheme for farmers, successfully created new SME's and expanded existing ones.

Flowing from the above, perhaps people can stick to facts when revisiting the past". He said.