The President of Dangote Industries, Aliko Dangote, said on Monday in Lagos that his company should be able to generate about 12,000 megawatts of electricity for the country by 2018.
He also said that his business estate would start selling foreign exchange to the Central Bank of Nigeria by 2020.
Dangote, who spoke at the Nigerian Economic Summit organised by Economist Events, an arm of The Economist of London, said, “We are looking at a situation that by 2020, we will be the one selling FX to the CBN. Our projects are mainly import substitution. We are working to be self-sufficient to grow about a million tonnes of rice over the next five years.
“Our gas project would have our gas pipelines on the seabed. The output should be able to provide about 12,000MW of power. We see a lot of transformation when we are done with most of our projects by 2018.
“We have 15 countries in the ECOWAS community that are duty-free. The export market is big and profitable if you have the capacity. Players in the manufacturing (sector) should be encouraged to export if they have the capacity. We must also meet local consumption.”
Dangote said the fall in crude oil price was not a curse and that the nation must use the opportunity to explore the potential in other sectors of the economy.
“This is the right moment to pursue the diversification of the economy, which we have been talking about. I know that once oil gets back to $80 per barrel, we will go back to the same misbehaviour.
“But I think this is the right time for that. Government must come up with the right policy, because if we don’t do it now, we may not do it. But low prices do not mean doom. In 1998-1999, the price of oil was $9. What we need to do is just to block the leakages and pursue diversification.”
According to Dangote, the monthly revenue inflow from oil, which used to be $3.2bn, is now around $1bn, and this has caused a number of challenges for businesses in the country.