Being text of the remarks by Dr. Umaru Kwairanga, Group Chair, NGX at the Dangote Refinery IPO event at the Nairobi Exchange, Kenya.
I am very happy to be part of this event.
In recent years, we have seen African leaders such as His Excellency, President William Ruto and our own President, His Excellency, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, advocate for Africa to come together and work towards solving its developmental challenges.
That call is being met in many practical ways by visionary entrepreneurs like my elder brother, Alhaji Aliko Dangote. In Nigeria, we have seen how he has led Nigeria’s turnaround from a cement importing nation to one that is self-sufficient in cement and even exports the product.
Now he is doing the same in fertilizer and petroleum products and spreading that vision of an industrialised African continent led by African visionaries across the continent. We have already seen the transformational impact of the Dangote Refinery in Lagos, Nigeria and I am confident that the one planned for Kenya will have the same positive impact on the whole of East Africa. He is also taking that even further by relying to a large extent on locally sourced capital rather than expensive and fickle foreign loans.
I invite our East African investors to key into this vision and give leaders like this the capital and support to take Africa to another higher level of development. You will be making a good investment decision for yourself and for future generations of Africans.
