Lagos — President of the Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, has attributed the successful construction of his multi-billion-dollar refinery in Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos State, to the intervention of the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Ogunwusi.

Dangote made the disclosure in a video shared by TheCable on X (formerly Twitter) on Friday, where he recounted the challenges encountered at the early stages of the project. According to him, construction work was stalled due to the presence of about 19 traditional shrines on the project site, which workers were unwilling to approach.

“I must recognise and thank the Ooni of Ife for enabling the building of our factory,” Dangote said. “When we got there, there were over 19 shrines at the site. Nobody was able to go near there to do anything.”

The billionaire industrialist explained that the Ooni personally visited the site and ordered the removal of the shrines, despite concerns about possible spiritual consequences.

“But Ooni went there, stood there and said, ‘remove all of them. Let the gods come and talk to me,’” Dangote said. “Your Royal Majesty, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart because without that singular act of yours, I don’t think we would have been able to build the refinery.”

The Dangote Refinery, situated within the Dangote Industries Free Zone in Ibeju-Lekki, is the world’s largest single-train refinery, with a processing capacity of 650,000 barrels of crude oil per day.

Dangote had previously revealed that he paid about $100 million to the Lagos State Government for the land on which the refinery was built. However, the project reportedly faced significant delays due to community-related issues, including disputes surrounding the shrines on the site.

The refinery, which commenced operations in 2024, is expected to significantly reshape Nigeria’s petroleum sector by reducing the country’s reliance on imported fuel products and generating thousands of direct and indirect jobs for Nigerians.