I Divested From Geregu To Buy Into Dangote Refinery, Says Otedola

Seeks $100m worth of shares

Chairman of FirstHoldCo, Femi Otedola, has confirmed that he sold his stake in Geregu Power Plc specifically to fund a planned investment in the Dangote Petroleum Refinery & Petrochemicals listing, and has appealed to Aliko Dangote for an allocation of $100 million worth of shares in the offering.

Otedola made the disclosure during a visit by FirstHoldCo’s leadership team to the Dangote Group’s 650,000 barrels-per-day refinery and Dangote Fertiliser Limited at Ibeju Lekki, Lagos.

Speaking at the site, he described the refinery as a “transformative industrial platform” that will help free Africa from decades of dependence on imported petroleum products.

“I have divested from Geregu to position myself to invest in the Dangote refinery,” Otedola said. “I have visited this refinery more than 25 times, and throughout the private placement process I have consistently appealed for $100 million worth of shares. This is not a speculative play; it is a strategic decision to support industrialisation in Africa.”

Otedola praised Aliko Dangote for the scale and ambition of the project, calling him “a genius and one of the greatest men to emerge from Africa.” He said the refinery’s capacity and the group’s expansion plans demonstrate that domestic refining can meet the continent’s growing demand for refined petroleum products.

Dangote, president of the Dangote Group, responded by assuring that the upcoming initial public offering (IPO) for the refinery would be broadly inclusive. He said the Group intends to open the opportunity to retail investors across Nigeria and Africa so that ordinary citizens can participate in the value created by the project.

“We want ordinary Africans to participate in the value being created,” Dangote said. “What companies like Amazon and Apple achieved globally in terms of wealth creation is what we seek to replicate in Africa. We want people to invest, grow with us, and share in the prosperity.”

Dangote also revealed plans for further capacity expansion, including a proposed East Africa refinery with a projected 700,000 barrels-per-day capacity and associated polypropylene and base oil facilities. He said the project could begin within three to four years once construction starts, and noted that the initiative was not originally part of the group’s Vision 2030 plan—signalling a faster-than-anticipated growth trajectory.

The planned listing has already attracted strong investor interest. Dangote told the visiting delegation that demand for the private placement has exceeded $2 billion, underscoring significant investor appetite for participation in the refinery’s growth. He emphasised, however, that while interest is robust, not all requests for allocation can be met.

Olusegun Alebiosu, chief executive officer of FirstBank Group, who joined the delegation, described the refinery as a symbol of industrial ambition capable of inspiring similar large-scale investments across Africa. He said delegates from the UK and other African countries would return home with renewed commitment to building domestic industries.

Otedola’s public request for a $100 million allocation—combined with his sale of Geregu shares—underscores the depth of private capital interest in the Dangote refinery and signals a vote of confidence from one of Nigeria’s most prominent investors. The move also highlights a broader narrative: that prominent domestic investors are pivoting from energy and infrastructure stakes into large-scale refining and petrochemicals projects seen as central to Africa’s industrialisation.

As Dangote prepares to open the refinery to a wider pool of investors through the IPO, retail and institutional appetite will determine how widely ownership is spread and how much capital is raised to fund further expansion across the continent.