If Allen Ifechukwu Onyema hadn’t pulled out a nice bottle of Veuve Clicquot Brut Rosé at his home the other day, I’d probably still be flying British Airways. But as my father taught me, you don’t accept a man’s drink and betray him. So while enjoying Allen’s hospitality, I decided I’d try Air Peace from London at the earliest opportunity.
I wasn’t sure what to expect, and honestly, I was feeling a bit like Desmond Tutu on that flight from Lagos to Jos back in the 1970s. Tutu saw Black pilots in the cockpit and initially felt enormous pride, vindicated against all those racist narratives claiming Blacks couldn’t handle such responsibilities. But when the plane hit savage turbulence, his first instinct was doubt. Were these Black pilots going to make it? He caught himself wishing there were white men up front. Years later, he shared this humiliating moment with Krista Tippett to illustrate how deeply apartheid and colonialism damage even those who resist them. The internalized self-hatred runs so deep that it makes us doubt people who look like us. The pilots landed safely, of course, but Tutu never forgot that lesson about psychological colonization.
I had similar baggage boarding that Air Peace flight. In a separate field, there’s something profoundly satisfying about watching the Dangote Refinery flex its industrial muscle on the global stage, yet somehow I had been buying British Airways tickets since Air Peace started flying to the UK for the same stupid reasons Tutu doubted those Nigerian pilots. More on that in a moment.
First, let’s talk about what Dangote has actually done. Since his refinery commenced operations, European refineries haven’t just felt pressure, they’ve been shutting down. Grangemouth in Scotland closed after seven decades, hemorrhaging $500,000 daily. Shell’s Wesseling facility in Germany is closing. BP is slashing a third of capacity at Gelsenkirchen. Valero’s Lindsey plant in the UK stopped gasoline production in July. Eni shuttered its Livorno refinery in Italy. Nearly 400,000 barrels per day of European refining capacity is going dark in 2025 alone. The International Energy Agency forecasts 1 to 1.5 million barrels per day of European capacity will vanish by 2030.
This isn’t coincidence. This is competition. And for once, Africa is winning. For decades, we’ve endured the paradox of being one of Africa’s largest oil producers while queuing for imported petrol. We watched European and American companies extract our resources, refine them abroad, and sell the finished products back to us at inflated prices. But something has shifted.
The Dangote Refinery demolishes tired narratives about African industrial capacity. This wasn’t some foreign company setting up shop in Lagos with expatriate management. This was an African company that secured $19 billion in financing, mastered the engineering, built the world’s largest single-train refinery, and is reshaping global refining economics in real time. When it reaches full planned capacity, it will be the largest refinery on Earth. Not in Houston. Not in Rotterdam. Not in Singapore. In Lagos, Nigeria.
Think about what that means. An African company going head to head with established Western multinationals on their own terms and winning. The companies that once dominated our markets and controlled our energy security are scrambling to adjust to a new reality where they’re no longer indispensable.
Now, if European refiners are feeling the heat, European airlines operating Nigerian routes should be absolutely terrified. For years, British Airways, Lufthansa, Air France, and KLM have enjoyed near-monopoly conditions on lucrative Lagos routes. The result? Predictable exploitation. Nigerians pay some of the highest fares globally for European connections while enduring shoddy service, overcrowded flights, endless delays, and that special take-it-or-leave-it arrogance airlines develop when they face no real competition.
So there I was on that Air Peace flight from London, and I have to admit, I didn’t see a single non-Nigerian face. But that wasn’t the tragedy I’d half-expected it to be. The Captain turned out to be an absolute legend. “I’m Remi Adeola, and I’m your captain on this flight to Abuja. It’s a beautiful night to be flying and the weather en route and at our destination are all very good. There are some low-hanging clouds as we depart Heathrow but we’ll get through them quite quickly…”
She spoke several more times before Abuja, gave a thorough review of the flight before we started our descent, and then delivered the best welcome speech I’ve ever heard after landing. You could sense her professionalism and pride in flying us home. It was remarkable, and I felt ashamed of my earlier doubts.
The Dangote precedent offers a tantalizing vision for aviation. What happens when a well-financed, professionally managed African airline decides to compete seriously on these routes? The refining sector shows the blueprint: match them on technology, exceed them on efficiency, undercut them on price, and watch the former masters retreat. European airlines have grown fat and complacent on African routes, assuming their brand prestige makes them untouchable. Dangote has proven that assumption catastrophically wrong.
Beyond the economics, something deeper is happening here. A psychological recalibration. For generations, value has flowed one direction: extract raw materials from Africa, add value in Europe, sell finished products back at markup. Dangote’s success attacks that narrative at its foundation. It demonstrates that Africans can mobilize capital, master complex technology, manage industrial operations at global scale, and compete successfully against established Western corporations.
As Dangote moves toward planned expansion to become the world’s largest refinery, competitive pressure on European refiners will only intensify. More closures are coming. The same fate awaits European airlines if African carriers seize the moment. The infrastructure exists. The demand is proven. The capital can be mobilized. What’s needed is the same audacity that built a $19 billion refinery on the edge of Lagos.
It feels good to be Nigerian right now because we’re witnessing something larger than one refinery or one airline. We’re watching the power dynamic shift. The Metropole dominated for centuries by controlling capital, technology, and markets. Dangote and Allen are showing that none of those advantages are permanent. When African vision meets African capital, energy, execution and passion, the old certainties crumble. It’s a great time to be Nigerian… and I’m not flying BA to London anytime soon.
Jerome Okolo is an Energy Entrepreneur and General Secretary of the National Think Tank for Nigeria.
