Finally, the President/Chief Executive of Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, has said his advocacy for the sale of the assets was never self-serving, stressing that “he was not interested in any of the assets”.
Before now, there has been massive disquiet he gave the federal government the idea to sale some national assets as a quick measure to fund the 2016 budget and boost the country’s foreign exchange reserves.
Besides, details of stakes at the NLNG show that the apex government owns only 49 per cent and is considering to put up only 5 per cent for sale if finally considered.
According to him, if the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) Company or any other national asset was offered to him, even on credit, he would not be interested in acquiring them.
It would be recalled that he offered his proposal as a way out of Nigeria’s present economic recession because he is “a true Nigerian who really wants the issues about the economy to be sorted out”.
“You know the issue, once your reserves are low, the banks, entrepreneurs, including external forces (https://thenovaclinic.com), would definitely attack your currency. They would speculate on your currency.
“We all know that the exchange rate of almost N500 to the dollar is not a true reflection of the value of the currency – the naira cannot be almost N500 to the dollar!
“But you see, if this thing is not handled properly, it can get out of hand. It can get to N600 to the dollar, or even N700 to the dollar.
“But the issue is, why did I suggest that we should sell some of the assets? I know the touchy one is the NLNG. I want to make it categorically clear that even if the government is selling NLNG on credit, I am not interested in buying.
“I don’t have any interest in NLNG and I will not buy it. It is not a business that I want to invest in. It is a mature business; that is what people don’t understand.
“You see, we should have invested heavily in all these Brass LNG, Olokola LNG, etc, when former President Olusegun Obasanjo started work on the projects, but we missed the opportunity.
“Today, you have massive LNG projects that have been done by Qatar, Australia and the United States is also exporting. But right now, all the gas that we have is even in the ground. Even Mozambique has a massive amount of gas and also Tanzania, and they are nearer to the markets than we are.
“So, if somebody is even going to invest in LNG, he would go to those areas and invest there and not here in Nigeria, because the investment here daunting. So my own suggestion is that even if we must sell, it doesn’t have to be 100 per cent of our interest in NLNG.”
