A man climbs into the cab of a truck and slaps the two drivers awake. He hasn’t invested $4 in Africa’s largest crude-oil refiner, he fumes, to find his workers asleep on the job.
Another new Dangote refinery shareholder sips from a mug while reading Robert Kiyosaki’s “Rich Dad Poor Dad.” “My fellow billionaires,” he says, “please come out.”
A third pitches refinery founder Aliko Dangote, African’s richest man, on expanding into peanuts and garri: “Had a brief meeting concerning our company and …”
Booming business and a minimum investment of just 5,250 Nigerian naira, or $3.94, has made the refinery’s IPO this week Africa’s largest — and inspired an explosion of memes depicting ordinary people transformed into oil tycoons.
The world’s largest single-train refinery, which began operations in 2024 to end Nigeria’s dependence on fuel imports, has emerged during the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran as an alternative to oil sourced through the Strait of Hormuz. With global demand and prices rising, the company this week reported a profit of $1.82 billion during the first six months of the year, up from a loss of $476 million last year.
The IPO is aimed at raising $1.4 billion to help fund an expansion to double the refinery’s production capacity. It’s already produced a rich volume of viral satire.
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