Considering the rate of unemployment in the West African country, some Nigerians are outraged that Dangote has instead chosen to hire Indians.
However, according to the report by Punch, this decision has been rationalised. The report notes that why the Dangote refinery is planning to hire 11,000 trained employees from India while ignoring young people from Nigeria and other African nations was revealed by the Sub-Saharan African Skills and Apprenticeship Stakeholders Network.
The organisation remarked on Wednesday that the reason for the neglect was that young people from Nigeria lacked the necessary abilities to do the task. The Network stated in a communiqué following its two-day conference in Abuja that it had decided that each African nation should create a national skills qualification framework to facilitate labour movement across the continent.
The regional organisation's Secretary-General, Ousman Sillah, signed the statement, which was made public on Wednesday.
In response, the company has disclosed that over 30,000 skilled Nigerians work with expatriates to build Refinery Complex. The Management of Dangote Refinery notes that the magnitude of the project requires specialised skilled workforce from all over the world and that while over 30,000 Nigerians were engaged among the skilled workforce, at the peak of construction in the Refinery complex, 6,400 Indians and 3,250 Chinese workers were among the skilled workforce.
According to the Dangote Refinery Group Chief Branding & Communications Officer, Anthony Chiejina, "Nigerians on the project demonstrated high level of technical competence many hidden skills were discovered among them."
The $20.5 billion Dangote refinery, Africa's largest, has a processing capacity of 650,000 barrels per day. It aims to produce 250,000 barrels per day of gasoline and 100,000 barrels per day of gasoline and diesel. These outputs could contribute to fuel self-sufficiency and reduce the $26 billion spent on petroleum imports in 2022.
