Chief Executive Officer of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, hinted on Saturday that in a few days, diesel will be sold at N1,000 per litre nationwide, adding that profiteers over time have benefited from the astronomic rise.
Dangote spoke on Saturday in Gombe in an interview with journalists.
According to him, his firm thought it expedient to reduce the price due to its patriotism, stressing that diesel is one of the most common commodities with a huge impact.
He said, “It’s to demonstrate that we are very patriotic. When we look at it, diesel affects the lives of everybody. We looked at it to see how we could bring the cost down.”
Explaining further the possible impact of the price drop, Dangote decried the activities of profiteers, adding, “Some persons have held the business for a very long time; they were profiteering, but we decided that we could afford to sell it at N1000, which is a 60 per cent drop.
“Areas like here (Gombe), Borno, Bauchi, it was selling for N1,700–N1,800, but right now, in the next few days, you will not buy diesel for more than N1000 anywhere in Nigeria.”
On possible business opportunities in Gombe, Dangote disclosed that it costs his company billions to transport cement into the North-East region, adding that it would be a lot cheaper to produce in Gombe.
“We are looking at the possibilities of investing in cement in the state. The state should be one of the major producers of cement because there is no cement factory in the entire North-East.
“This is a very lucrative area because you are close to neighbouring states like Borno, where you can easily go to Cameroon and Chad.
“If you produce 20 times what you are producing, it will be consumed. We are spending billions of naira to bring cement to the North-East,.
“We have the limestone and others here, if we have the opportunity, we definitely will invest,” he added.