Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man and President of the Dangote Group, has officially named the main road leading to the Dangote Refinery complex after Nigeria’s President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu. The newly inaugurated access route, now designated as “Bola Ahmed Tinubu Road,” was unveiled during the formal commissioning of the Deep Sea Port Access Road in Lagos State on Wednesday, June 5, 2025.
The road serves as the key connection from Eleko Junction to the expansive Dangote Refinery and Fertiliser complex located within the Lekki Free Trade Zone. It is an essential transportation corridor for the movement of personnel, raw materials, and finished petroleum products in and out of the multi-billion-dollar facility. The construction and completion of the road are seen as a major infrastructural milestone that supports the full-scale operations of the refinery.
During the ceremony, Dangote described President Tinubu as a visionary leader whose policies and support played a crucial role in actualizing the refinery project. He referred to the refinery as “in many ways your brainchild,” directly attributing the motivation for private sector confidence and large-scale industrial investment to the leadership of Tinubu during his time as Lagos State Governor and now as President.
According to Dangote, President Tinubu’s proactive economic reforms and support for business-friendly environments created the conditions necessary for such a monumental private investment to be realized. He further emphasized that the president’s role in encouraging infrastructure development and fostering investor confidence was instrumental in laying the groundwork for what has now become one of the world’s largest single-train refineries.
The 650,000 barrels-per-day Dangote Refinery is expected to reshape Nigeria’s oil and gas landscape by significantly reducing the country’s dependence on imported refined fuel. Once fully operational, the refinery will not only meet Nigeria’s entire domestic fuel demand but also generate surplus volumes for export, thereby positioning Nigeria as a regional energy hub in Africa.
In addition to fuel production, the complex houses a urea fertiliser plant and is integrated with a petrochemical operation and a deep-sea port. This integrated infrastructure is designed to support efficient logistics and export capabilities, making it a strategic asset for both Nigeria and the West African subregion. The road named after Tinubu will now serve as a symbolic and physical link between Nigeria’s industrial ambitions and the political leadership that helped facilitate them.
This is not the first time Dangote has used road naming as a form of recognition. In March 2024, he named a 120-kilometre stretch of the refinery’s internal road network after the late Herbert Wigwe, former CEO of Access Holdings. That gesture was in appreciation of Wigwe’s contributions and strategic support during the financing and early execution phases of the refinery project.
The inauguration of the Bola Ahmed Tinubu Road also comes at a time when Nigeria is pushing for increased local refining capacity amid challenges in the oil sector, including limited domestic crude allocation, foreign exchange constraints, and longstanding corruption within the downstream petroleum industry. Dangote has voiced frustration in recent months over difficulties securing crude oil from the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), the state-owned oil company, for refinery operations.
Despite these challenges, Dangote remains optimistic that the refinery will achieve full operational capacity in the coming months. The facility began initial production earlier in 2024 and is gradually ramping up operations across its various units, including gasoline, diesel, and aviation fuel processing lines. The refinery is also expected to generate thousands of direct and indirect jobs and contribute significantly to Nigeria’s GDP through industrial output and exports.
The naming of the road after President Tinubu underscores the strong relationship between private enterprise and political leadership in Nigeria’s economic development. It also highlights the importance of consistent policy environments in enabling landmark investments capable of transforming key sectors. For Dangote, the act serves not only as a tribute but as a record of the critical role that presidential support played in making the refinery a reality.
As operations at the Dangote Refinery scale up, the impact of this infrastructure on Nigeria’s energy self-sufficiency and economic growth will be closely monitored by both local stakeholders and international observers. The completion of the access road and its naming after President Tinubu marks another chapter in Nigeria’s industrial journey—one that aims to shift the nation from being a net importer of petroleum products to becoming a refining powerhouse on the continent.
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