Africa’s push for industrial self-reliance received a major boost on Wednesday as Kenyan President William Ruto and President/Chief Executive of Dangote Industries Limited, Aliko Dangote, joined other African leaders to break ground on a $16 billion petroleum refinery and petrochemicals complex in Lamu, Kenya.

Designed to process 700,000 barrels of crude oil per day, the Dangote East Africa Petroleum Refinery & Petrochemicals is expected to serve Kenya and a wider Eastern African market, while strengthening regional energy security and supporting the continent’s drive to retain more value from its natural resources.

Dangote said the project would be completed within 40 months, making it one of the fastest major industrial projects undertaken by the Group.

He said mobilisation of equipment and technical resources had already begun, with the company drawing extensively on experience gained from the construction and commissioning of the Dangote Petroleum Refinery in Lagos.

The Kenyan project is expected to include a 700,000 barrels-per-day refinery, polypropylene and base-oil production facilities, as well as capacity to generate up to 1,000 megawatts of electricity.

But beyond its processing capacity, Dangote said the project was being designed as a vehicle for economic transformation, with local participation and regional ownership at its core.

The industrialist announced that 30 per cent equity in the refinery would be made available to East African countries, creating an opportunity for governments in the region to participate directly in ownership and the future value generated by the project.

Kenya and Rwanda, he said, had already moved quickly to take advantage of the opportunity.

Dangote said the ownership structure reflected his broader vision of an Africa in which countries do not merely provide markets for industrial projects but participate in their ownership and prosperity.

“This refinery is therefore not simply about one country. It is about a region,” he said.

The refinery is designed to serve Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and other markets across Eastern Africa.

Dangote also placed the development of local skills and businesses at the centre of the project, announcing opportunities for qualified graduates from Lamu and technical and vocational training for more than 1,000 young people from the county.

The Group will establish a training school to develop the technical skills required by the refinery, with emphasis on preparing local youths for employment during construction and subsequent operations.

“We want young Kenyans and East Africans with skills here. We want local businesses to become suppliers. We want entrepreneurs around this project,” Dangote said.

“For me, the true measure of this project will not be the height of these towers or the number of barrels it processes.”

He said its success would also be measured by the number of young Kenyans acquiring engineering and technical skills, local entrepreneurs building businesses around the investment and communities experiencing improved livelihoods.

“Industrialisation must have a human face. It must create dignity. It must create jobs. It must create opportunities. It must create hope,” he said.

President Ruto put the value of the development at $16 billion, equivalent to about KSh2 trillion, describing it as a “generational undertaking” that would serve Kenya and the wider Eastern African region.

The Kenyan President said current projections indicated that the project could generate about 60,000 direct and indirect jobs.

He directed technical and vocational institutions as well as universities to prepare welders, technicians, engineers and managers for the employment opportunities, stressing that young people from Lamu and neighbouring communities should have a fair opportunity to compete for the jobs.

Ruto said the construction phase alone was expected to inject more than KSh2 billion monthly in wages into the Kenyan economy, with the income circulating through shops, hotels, restaurants, transport services, housing and other businesses.

The employment and local-content commitments are expected to extend the project’s economic impact beyond the refinery itself by creating an industrial ecosystem involving local suppliers, contractors and entrepreneurs.

For Dangote, the Lamu investment also represents a direct challenge to Africa’s longstanding dependence on exporting raw materials while importing finished products.

He argued that the continent could no longer afford to export crude oil, minerals and agricultural commodities and subsequently import products made from those resources.

“Africa cannot build lasting prosperity by exporting what it has and importing what it needs,” he said.

“We must refine more of what we produce. We must process more of what we produce. We must retain more value here at home in Africa.”

The proposed refinery therefore fits into a wider industrialisation strategy that seeks to expand Africa’s domestic processing capacity, create jobs and reduce dependence on imported petroleum products.

Lamu County Governor Issa Timamy used the groundbreaking ceremony to reject attempts to halt the project through litigation, arguing that opposition to the development did not represent the aspirations of the county’s residents.

Addressing residents partly in Swahili, Timamy said those challenging the project in court were seeking to frustrate an investment capable of transforming Lamu’s economic fortunes.

He maintained that the project would proceed and be completed, while urging young people and businesses in the county to prepare for the opportunities expected to accompany the investment.

According to him, Lamu had for too long remained rich in history, culture and natural resources while lagging in economic development. He said the refinery offered the county an opportunity to emerge as a major investment and industrial destination.

At the same time, the governor stressed the need to protect Lamu’s mangroves, fishing grounds, coastline and cultural heritage, calling for a development model that would allow industrialisation and environmental protection to coexist.

Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo led other African leaders in celebrating Dangote’s emergence as one of the continent’s major industrialists, recalling his transition from trading and importation into large-scale manufacturing.

Obasanjo said the transformation demonstrated the importance of governments creating an enabling environment for indigenous entrepreneurs to invest, manufacture and compete at scale.

He said the Lamu project represented an expansion of that industrialisation philosophy from West Africa into East Africa, with the potential to deepen economic integration between the two regions.

Obasanjo said he was particularly pleased to witness the groundbreaking because of its potential to demonstrate what African entrepreneurship, supported by purposeful political leadership, could achieve.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni also backed the regional ownership model, arguing that Africa could not continue exporting raw materials while surrendering the jobs and wealth associated with processing them elsewhere.

He described the opportunity for East African countries to acquire equity in the refinery as an approach that would enable the region to participate not only as a market but also as an owner.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said the project would strengthen East Africa’s energy security and reduce the region’s vulnerability to disruptions in global petroleum markets.

Abiy pointed to Dangote’s investments in cement, fertiliser and petroleum refining as evidence of the capacity of African industrial enterprises to operate at global scale.

“East Africa is not only a market. It is a place to produce, to build and to create value,” he said.

With its planned 700,000-barrel-per-day processing capacity, regional ownership structure, local skills programme and petrochemical components, the Lamu project is being positioned not simply as another refinery investment but as a regional industrial platform.

For Dangote, its significance extends beyond petroleum: it is intended to demonstrate that African capital and entrepreneurship can increasingly drive large-scale industrial projects while keeping a greater share of the continent’s resource value, skills, jobs and ownership within Africa.