President Olusegun Obasanjo flew into a rage after being told that there was diesel scarcity across the country because of deregulation, Femi Otedola has revealed in his forthcoming book, ‘Making It Big: Lessons from a Life in Business’.
Obasanjo was so angry that he accused Otedola of misleading him to deregulate the importation of the product, over which the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) — as it was then known — used to have absolute monopoly.
Otedola, who owned Zenon Petroleum, had assured Obasanjo that the private sector could meet local demand without the involvement of the NNPC, which was selling below market price and getting subsidy reimbursement from the federal government.
The government liberalised the diesel market in 2004, making it the first petroleum product to be fully free of subsidy and ending the associated rent culture.
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The billionaire businessman wrote in excerpts shared with TheCable: “When President Obasanjo deregulated diesel in 2004, Zenon took an unassailable lead in the market. My opponents’ reaction was to tell the president that we’d turned the market upside down [and that the] economy was about to be brought down because there was no diesel, and Obasanjo was mad at me because he’d sought and received assurances from us that NNPC’s exit from diesel importation wouldn’t affect supply. My critics then fanned the flames by telling him there was no diesel in the country, that trucks couldn’t move and that industries were shutting down.”
‘YOU’RE A STUPID BOY’
He continued: “The President… called me at 2am, shouting through the phone. ‘You’re a stupid boy! God will punish you! You persuaded me to deregulate diesel, and now there’s no diesel in the country!’ He was livid. I flew to Abuja the following day. As soon as Obasanjo saw me, he flew into a rage again. ‘What kind of rubbish is this? What kind of nonsense is this?’ He was right in my face, screaming at the top of his lungs. I allowed him to cool down, and when he stopped talking, I tried to explain the situation. ‘Baba, they’re lying to you. It’s all lies. I have six ships waiting to discharge big supplies of diesel.'”
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He said he told Obasanjo that there was diesel all over the country and showed him letters of credit for all the cargoes.
“I was even paying demurrage. I told the president that I was the victim of competitors’ backbiting,” he wrote, saying he asked Obasanjo to “see what they come up with next… You’ll see that it’s me who’s telling you the truth.”
To address the disinformation head on, Otedola said, he told Obasanjo he would start advertising the availability and price of diesel on the front page of the newspapers, addressing any concerns about fair and consistent pricing.
“I knew it was people in NNPC – the state monopoly, in their now – teetering positions of power, who were against deregulation – who’d been telling him these lies. They wanted to continue to import, and rake in the subsidy money.
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“Obasanjo was a determined and robust president. Jealous people did not easily sway him. Once he made up his mind that someone was trustworthy and genuine, as he seemed to do about me that day, he stopped listening to the naysayers.”
The book, Otedola’s first, has received advance glowing praise from Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, director general of World Trade Organization (WTO), Akinwumi Adesina, president of the African Development Bank Group and Aliko Dangote, president of the Dangote Group, Samuel Adedoyin, founder and chairman of the Doyin Group of Companies, and Arunma Oteh, former vice president and treasurer of the World Bank treasury.
‘Making It Big’, published by FO Books, is slated for release on Monday, August 18, 2025.
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