‘You’re a stup!d boy!’ — Otedola reveals Obasanjo’s anger at him when NNPC tried to sabotage diesel deregulation

‘You’re a stup!d boy!’ — Otedola reveals Obasanjo’s anger at him when NNPC tried to sabotage diesel deregulation

 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.

 

The billionaire businessman wrote in excerpts: “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 STUP!D 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.'”

 

 

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.

 

 

“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.

Source: ‘You’re a stup!d boy!’ — Otedola reveals Obasanjo’s anger at him when NNPC tried to sabotage diesel deregulation

 - NigerianEye
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