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Former President Olusegun Obasanjo became enraged after learning that deregulation was causing a shortage of diesel nationwide, according to a story disclosed by billionaire businessman Femi Otedola.

Femi Otedola disclosed this in his upcoming book, “Making It Big: Lessons from a Life in Business,” according to ZINGTIE.

Otedola claims that Obasanjo was so incensed that he accused the billionaire of deceiving him in order to loosen restrictions on the product’s importation, which the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) had previously had complete control over.

Obasanjo had been reassured by Otedola, the owner of Zenon Petroleum, that the private sector could satisfy local demand without the help of the NNPC, which was selling below market value and receiving reimbursement from the federal government for subsidies.In 2004, the government liberalized the diesel market, removing the rent culture that accompanied it and making it the first petroleum product to be completely free of subsidies.

The millionaire entrepreneur wrote, as reported by The Cable: “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.”

He continued: “The President… called me at 2 am, 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.”

“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.”

Otedola claimed that in order to allay any worries regarding equitable and uniform pricing, he promised Obasanjo that he would begin promoting the availability and cost of diesel on the newspaper’s front page.

He said: “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.”

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