Q&A: Wale Tinubu, group CEO of Oando

Wale Tinubu: the group chief executive of Oando spoke to FT.com about his expansion plans

As group chief executive of Oando, Wale Tinubu ranks among Nigeria’s most influential businessmen. Now he wants to turn the company, one of the nation’s dominant fuel importers, into an “African major”, rivalling the foreign giants that extract the country’s crude.

To his critics, Mr Tinubu is one of the oligarchs who benefit from the contortions in Nigeria’s oil industry. In spite of being sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest oil producer, the dilapidated state of the country’s refineries means it imports almost all its refined fuel products. The importers – Oando foremost among them – have made billions of dollars from a government subsidy that keeps prices low at the pumps.