Billionaire businessman, Femi Otedola, has revealed details of a tense confrontation with former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, over diesel deregulation in his forthcoming memoir, Making It Big: Lessons from a Life in Business.
According to excerpts from the book, the incident occurred in 2004 after the federal government deregulated diesel importation based on advice from Otedola and other private sector stakeholders. At the time, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, had been the sole importer under a subsidy regime.
Otedola’s company, Zenon Petroleum, assured the presidency that private firms could meet national demand without government intervention. “When President Obasanjo deregulated diesel in 2004, Zenon took an unassailable lead in the market,” Otedola wrote. “My opponents’ reaction was to tell the president that we’d turned the market upside down… and that industries were shutting down because there was no diesel.”
The businessman recounted that Obasanjo called him at about 2 a.m., visibly angry. “‘You’re a stupid boy! God will punish you!’ he shouted. ‘You persuaded me to deregulate diesel, and now there’s no diesel in the country!’”
Otedola said he flew to Abuja the next day to explain. “As soon as Obasanjo saw me, he flew into a rage again… I allowed him to cool down, and when he stopped talking, I explained the situation,” he wrote.
He told the former president there were six ships loaded with diesel waiting to discharge and presented letters of credit as proof. He alleged that certain NNPC officials, opposed to deregulation, had deliberately misled Obasanjo to protect their subsidy benefits.
To counter the misinformation, Otedola said he began publishing diesel availability and prices in newspapers to reassure both the public and the government of steady supply.
He described Obasanjo as a “determined and robust president” who, once convinced of a person’s integrity, remained steadfast in his support.
