The confirmation by Nigeria’s cement mogul turned industrialisation advocate, Aliko Dangote, that he will build a 700,000-barrel-per-day oil refinery on Kenya’s Lamu Island is a political economy coup for President William Ruto. It is another step on Ruto’s path to turning Kenya into a ‘first world’ economy modelled on Singapore. Ruto told journalists on 8 July, as he signed a new law creating a Sovereign Wealth Fund, that a date for the refinery launch had been set, though he did not make the big reveal.

The US$17 billion mega-project is set to match the capacity of Dangote’s Lagos plant and could hugely reduce East Africa’s reliance on imported fuel. It will also be a huge economic boost to Lamu, one of Kenya’s poorest counties, whose once lucrative tourist industry was devastated by a series of deadly Al Shabaab attacks over a decade ago.

Dangote says that the project, which is expected to take between three and five years to complete, will be financed via cash flow, bonds, and a planned IPO. But backing Kenya is a snub for Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu Hassan, who had touted Tanga port as an alternative, with a pipeline to Kenya’s Mombasa port. Yet the warning signs for Tanga were plentiful at April’s African Finance Corporation summit in Nairobi hosted by Ruto flanked by Dangote. ‘Kenya was the choice from the beginning,’ Dangote Vice-President Edwin Devakumar told Reuters, words that will sting in Arusha.