Dangote’s oil refinery in Kenya: How corporate-led industrialisation clashes with land rights and climate justice
Original framing: “Africa's richest man to launch Kenya oil refinery despite land protests” — BBC News - World
The voices of women land protesters, such as those in the Ogiek-led *Mau Forest Conservation* movement, are systematically excluded from mainstream narratives, yet they are often the most affected by displacement and environmental degradation. Women in the region report increased sexual violence and food insecurity following land grabs, issues that are never mentioned in corporate or state communications. The 2020 *Land Rights Now* campaign highlighted how women in Kenya hold only 1% of formal land titles, making them particularly vulnerable to evictions for projects like Dangote’s refinery. These marginalised voices challenge the dominant narrative by framing land rights as a feminist issue, yet their perspectives are absent from the BBC’s coverage.
The Dangote refinery in Kenya is not an isolated economic project but a symptom of deeper systemic failures: the legacy of colonial land dispossession, the neoliberal myth of ‘African-led industrialisation’, and the global North’s hypocrisy in demanding climate action while outsourcing fossil fuel expansion to the Global South.
The Ogiek’s resistance exposes the contradiction at the heart of this narrative—their land is both a site of corporate greed and a living testament to Indigenous knowledge systems that offer sustainable alternatives. Historical patterns, from Nigeria’s oil curse to Rwanda’s renewable energy success, demonstrate that energy transitions are possible without environmental sacrifice, but they require political will to resist corporate lobbying and enforce land rights. The trickster dimension reveals the absurdity of framing Dangote as a saviour while ignoring the voices of those who will bear the cost of his empire. To move forward, Kenya must centre Indigenous governance, audit corporate debt, and invest in renewable energy—proving that true industrialisation is not built on extraction but on justice.