Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Information and Strategy, is under fire as he is alleged to be secretly working for Aliko Dangote, President of Dangote Group.
On Tuesday, he posted a Bloomberg report of an interview with the President of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, advising the federal government that this is the right time to remove fuel subsidies completely.
Dangote, whose 650,000 barrels per day Dangote Petroleum Refinery has started supplying petrol, boasted that fuel production at the refinery would help Nigeria save money.
“But this refinery will resolve a lot of issues out there, you know. It will show the real consumption of Nigeria, because, you know, nobody can tell you. Some people say 60 million litres of gasoline per day. Some say it’s less. But right now, if you look at it by us producing, everything can be counted,” he was quoted to have told Bloomberg.
It was a shocking post to read on Onanuga’s handle considering the fact that the Federal Government had repeatedly denied paying any fuel subsidy since May 2023 when President Tinubu announced the end of subsidy.
It was therefore not surprising that he quickly deleted the post.
Sources disclosed that Onanuga had to delete the post because of the embarrassment it caused President Tinubu who doubles as the Minister of Petroleum Resources.
Onanuga himself had said in a statement on Tuesday that the Federal Government did not lie about the subsidy removal, further making his post on Dangote interview more ridiculous.
Onanuga said the government has been faithful to its policy that it was no longer going to pay fuel subsidies since the deregulation of the sector in May last year.
Sources who spoke to said Onanuga may be quietly working for Dangote within the presidency due to his penchant for promoting the businessman in his paper, PM News and statements as Tinubu’s adviser.
During the last strike action called by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Onanuga issued a controversial statement that was meant to reply the UK’s Labour Party on alleged human rights abuses in Nigeria but ended up promoting Dangote’s business ingenuity.
The statement titled “Nigeria, a country governed by law, categorically denies any human rights abuse, attacked the NLC, saying it undermined Dangote and others who wanted to buy Nigeria’s moribund refineries in 2007.
Accusing the NLC of always taking positions that stunted the economic growth and development of the country, Onanuga said the labour union frustrated the sale of the Port Harcourt refinery to Dangote.
Further checks on Onanuga’s social media activities show that the presidential aide has been actively promoting the recent actions and statements of Dangote through his X (formally Twitter) account.
Over the past year, Onanuga’s series of tweets has placed him as a proponent of Dangote’s vision.
His tweets such as “Dangote refinery must not fail” on July 21, 2024, or his congratulatory message to the Dangote Group on December 10, 2023, for the refinery’s progress, depict a spokesperson who is not only endorsing Dangote’s achievements but actively working to promote the billionaire’s standing in public conversation.
In one of his tweets on May 22, 2023, Onanuga recounted how Dangote’s refinery journey began over a decade ago despite being labeled “a foolish man” for his decision to invest billions of dollars in the project.
Onanuga wrote, “Some years ago, Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man invited media leaders to a luncheon at then Protea Hotel in Ikeja to mark his 55th birthday. Some of his guests sat around him at the centre table. They chatted freely. Discussions about our country, the state of the economy soon veered into discussing the absurdity of our country, being a major crude exporter, and also a major importer of refined petroleum products.
“Our colleague from a major business paper said the local conditions were unfavourable to any investor who wanted to build a refinery. He then made a remark that I believe he would live to regret: “Only a foolish man will build a refinery in Nigeria”.
“Aliko who had listened to all our business and political pontifications, interjected: “I am that foolish man”. A pin drop silence enveloped the table as he dropped the unexpected news: “My company has just decided to build a refinery in the country. But we are doing it big”. Those were his exact words, as the multi-dollar billionaire told us he was willing to spend close to $9 billion on the project.
“The media big man became speechless. The rest of us caught the contagion of being flummoxed as well, as Aliko expatiated on the project.”
In the post shared after former President Muhammadu Buhari inaugurated the refinery, Onanuga added, “For Aliko, all is well that ends well. The complex will bring to an end our country’s many decades of shame, for being unable to refine its crude and having to depend on importation, wasting scarce forex.
“The ‘foolish man’ of 11 years ago has demonstrated once again that he is a man of wisdom, a peerless shrewd investor who sees clearly the ‘bigger picture’, when his compatriots are bogged down by parochialism and immediate monetary gains.”
Whether Onanuga’s endorsements are merely a celebration of Dangote’s accomplishments or calculated effort to manage public perception of the billionaire amid his perceived rift with government entities is a question begging for answer.
