LAGOS: Billionaire businessman, Femi Otedola, has stepped into the heated dispute between the Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association of Nigeria (DAPPMAN) and the Dangote Refinery, urging depot owners to embrace reform instead of resisting change.
Otedola, in a strongly worded statement on Monday, advised DAPPMAN members to restructure their operations or even consider acquiring the Port Harcourt Refinery if they intend to remain relevant in Nigeria’s evolving downstream sector.
What is DAPPMAN fighting for today? To preserve a model built on fuel imports, subsidy exploitation, and outdated infrastructure. That era is fast disappearing, Otedola declared.
The clash was triggered by Dangote Refinery’s move to deploy 4,000 newly purchased Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) trucks to distribute petrol directly to filling stations nationwide, cutting off traditional depots.
DAPPMAN accused Dangote of attempting to monopolise the downstream sector by undercutting fuel prices and bypassing depot owners.
The association even demanded ₦1.5 trillion in compensation from Dangote Refinery a claim Otedola dismissed as unrealistic and unfair to Nigerian consumers.
Otedola, who founded DAPPMAN in 2002 before exiting the group, said depot operators are clinging to a fuel import economy that no longer exists.
Depots do not drive employment as some claim. A typical depot employs maybe five people, including the gatekeeper. But one filling station provides dozens of jobs.
If DAPPMAN members want relevance, they should invest in last-mile retail, not storage tanks that belong to the past.
He compared the sector’s transformation to the cement industry, where import-based businesses collapsed once Nigeria began producing cement locally.
The same outcome awaits fuel depots. If DAPPMAN does not adapt, they may go bankrupt.
They could even come together and buy the Port Harcourt Refinery if they truly believe in competition.
Otedola praised Aliko Dangote and the Tinubu administration for breaking the grip of fuel import cabals through full deregulation and local refining.
He argued that Dangote’s refinery has eliminated fuel queues, improved logistics, and introduced 8,000 brand-new eco-friendly trucks into Nigeria’s fuel distribution chain. Aliko’s refinery is not the problem.
It is the solution, Otedola insisted, adding that the refinery’s efficiency will reduce smuggling, subsidy fraud, and bottlenecks in the petroleum market.
Otedola, who once dominated Nigeria’s diesel importation market through Zenon Oil, warned depot owners that Nigeria’s 4 million metric tons of storage capacity is now largely idle.
I advised some of them as far back as last year to sell their depots as scrap while they still had value. The old model is finished.
We must stop clinging to outdated privileges and focus on a new era built on self-sufficiency, transparency, and sustainable value creation.
The businessman concluded by stressing that history has always sided with innovation, not resistance. You can delay change, frustrate it, even sabotage it, but you can never stop it.
