Investment banker and development economist, Nnaemeka Obiareri, has dismissed allegations that Dangote Refinery sacked 800 Nigerian workers and replaced them with 2,000 Indian expatriates, describing the claims as “unfounded and impractical.”
Speaking during an interview on TVC News on Tuesday, September 30, 2025, Obiareri insisted that such mass recruitment was unrealistic.
“First of all, PENGASSAN and NUPENG are in a better position to substantiate the allegations. The rumors around that Dangote sacked 800 Nigerians and in one swoop employed 2,000 Indians, it’s not feasible, it’s not possible. It’s not possible for you to just sack 800 people today and the next day you’ve recruited 2,000 people from India. There are processes of bringing in expatriates into Nigeria. We also have local content policy and law to protect Nigerians from such actions,” he said.
He also questioned the silence of oil unions during years of refinery failures despite huge investments: “Where are the NUPENG and PENGASSAN leadership? When Aliko Dangote employed 1,000 Nigerian engineers and sent them abroad to train them to man those refineries after completion. Where were they when he was borrowing money to set up the biggest single refinery in Nigeria for $20 billion? Where were they for 18 years? Nigeria wasted $18 billion on turnaround maintenance program on the three refineries, Warri, Port Harcourt, and Kaduna.”
“Members of PENGASSAN, members of NUPENG were drawing salaries at a monument of 120 billion Naira every year on dead refineries. They were traveling on first class, business class around the world for training on nothing. They never demonstrated. They never protested. They never asked anybody to be held accountable for wasting billions upon billions of dollars year on year without a refinery working. If those refineries were their private business, they themselves would not sustain the workers even for two days. And that is a question every Nigerian must ask concerning this same problem,” Obiareri queried.Continue, Full, Reading>>>>
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