A London-based NGO was caught red-handed trying to bribe a well-known Nigerian investigative journalist to write a slanderous article on the huge oil refinery and petrochemical plant opened by the Dangote Group. An initiative of Nigerian industrialist Aliko Dangote, the $20 billion refinery can process 650,000 barrels of oil a day. It is the largest refinery in Africa and the seventh largest in the world. It has the potential to end West Africa’s annual need to import $17 billion worth of gasoline from Europe.
Dangote’s refinery was too big to be ignored by the British Malthusian environmentalists, the storm troopers against economic development for Africa. In early August, Nigerian investigative journalist David Hundeyin revealed on X that he was offered the equivalent of $500 to write an article trashing the Dangote refinery, as part of an effort to pressure the Nigerian government to shut it down. Hundeyin not only refused the bribe, but he also went public, posting the offer on his X account, complete with several pages, describing how he was supposed to write the article. Hundeyin then included his detailed investigation of the NGO funding the efforts, Dialogue Earth. It was headed by Oxford Prof. Sam Geall, and is financed by the top foundations that bankroll the environmentalist movement, including the Ford Foundation and ClimateWorks. His post received 3.1 million views within 48 hours and the issue received widespread coverage in the Nigerian media.
Support for Hundeyin also came from the Executive Chairman of the African Energy Chamber (AEC), Nj Ayuk, who issued a statement denouncing Dialogue Earth. “The AEC fully supports Hundeyin and commends him for standing up to Dialogue Earth. We are totally opposed to a Western NGO trying to use African voices to advance its own biased agenda. The attempt to get a well-known Nigerian journalist to actually support such a smear campaign shows a cowardly approach by the Western NGO to try to destroy the African oil and gas industry, all because it cannot do so with its own names or organizations.”
Ayuk added that Dialogue Earth’s recent dirty ops is just one of many by Western-based and -funded NGOs to stop oil and gas projects in Africa. “These tactics are detrimental to Africa’s development, our fight against energy poverty and to young people who want to build strong democracies,” he said.