12 years after visiting Nigeria, Kenya’s president is scheduled to return courtesy of the same person, making his first visit to the country as president

The president of Kenya, William Ruto, who visited Nigeria 12 years ago, is set to make his first visit to the country since assuming the presidency. Both visits share a common theme: Dangote.

• Kenya's President William Ruto will visit Nigeria to inspect the Dangote Petroleum Refinery, marking his first trip there since becoming president.
• This visit precedes the groundbreaking of a proposed 700,000-barrel-per-day refinery in Lamu, Kenya, spearheaded by Dangote Group.
• The refinery in Kenya is part of Dangote's expansion plans to bring his successful refining model from Nigeria to East Africa.
• The Lamu location was chosen for its access to the Indian Ocean and the LAPSSET corridor, reviving Kenya's refining ambitions after the closure of the Mombasa refinery in 2013.

William Ruto’s visit to Nigeria over a decade ago was to the Dangote Cement factory in Kogi State.

Presently, the Kenyan president plans to visit the West African nation to inspect the Dangote Petroleum Refinery by Friday ahead of the September 30 groundbreaking of the proposed 700,000-barrel-per-day refinery in Lamu, Kenya.

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The planned visit results from Dangote’s intent to set up an oil refinery in Kenya, after disclosing that part of his expansion objectives was to build an oil refinery in East Africa.

President Ruto’s upcoming visit follows the aforementioned report, with Aliko Dangote scheduled to host him at the Lekki refinery, according to a company official who spoke with The Punch newspaper.

Dangote’s planned East African oil refinery

In April, Ruto revealed that East African governments were considering a regional refinery at Tanzania’s Tanga port.

The facility was being discussed as a way to process crude from Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Dangote was present at the infrastructure financing meeting where Ruto made the announcement and later showed interest in the project.

He said he was willing to bring the refining model used in Nigeria to East Africa.

The plan later moved from Tanzania to Kenya, as Dangote’s team first looked at Mombasa before settling on Lamu, where the refinery would have direct access to the Indian Ocean and the wider Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport corridor, known as LAPSSET.

The project would also revive Kenya’s refining ambitions more than a decade after its Mombasa refinery stopped processing crude in 2013.

The old refinery struggled financially, and efforts to secure funding for a major upgrade collapsed.

Kenya eventually took full ownership of the facility after buying Essar Energy’s 50% stake in 2016.

Earlier this week, the Kenyan President revealed that the country was ready to break ground on the planned refinery, after meeting Dangote Industries President and CEO Aliko Dangote and Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) CEO Samaila Zubairu in New York.

Additionally, Aliko Dangote, in a $450 million arrangement, hired Engineers India Ltd., the Indian engineers behind his Lagos refinery, to provide project management and engineering consultancy services for the planned Kenyan refinery.