Billionaire businessman, Femi Otedola, has revealed details of a tense encounter with former President Olusegun Obasanjo over diesel deregulation in his forthcoming memoir Making It Big: Lessons from a Life in Business.
In excerpts from the book, Otedola recalled that Obasanjo confronted him in 2004 after reports of diesel scarcity spread across Nigeria. At the time, the federal government had just deregulated diesel importation based on advice from Otedola and other private sector players.
Otedola’s company, Zenon Petroleum, had assured the presidency that private firms could meet the nation’s diesel demand without relying on the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), which was then the sole importer operating under a subsidy regime.
“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.”
According to Otedola, Obasanjo called him around 2am, visibly furious.
“‘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 following day to clear the air. “
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 informed the former president that there were six ships loaded with diesel waiting to discharge and presented letters of credit as proof. He also alleged that certain NNPC officials opposed to deregulation had intentionally misled the president to protect their subsidy benefits.
To combat the misinformation, Otedola began publishing diesel availability and pricing 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, would stand firmly in their corner.
