Aliko Dangote is used to building big things in difficult places. His refinery in Lagos, Africa’s largest, rose out of swampland despite years of sceptics, cost overruns and a fight with Nigeria’s own oil establishment. His planned second act, a $16 billion refinery on the shore of Lamu in Kenya, was meant to be easier. It has not started well. Ahead of a groundbreaking ceremony scheduled for September 30th, a court in Malindi has told everyone involved to stand still. Whether everyone will comply is less certain.
The order came on September 25th from Justice Jane Onyango of the Environment and Land Court. She was asked by 133 residents of Chandavai, in Lamu County, to halt the project. They say the refinery sits on land their families have occupied for generations. The judge declined to certify the application as urgent, which means no immediate injunction.
Her order, however, says the application should be served on the respondents “forthwith”. She told the parties to maintain the status quo on the land. The respondents have 14 days to reply.
The order does not mention the groundbreaking. Lawyers for the residents read it as a bar on construction before the hearing. Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals says no work will take place at the site until the case is heard, yet it still plans to hold its ceremony this week.
The distinction between a ceremony and construction may satisfy the company. It is unlikely to satisfy the plaintiffs, or a judge who has just asked for calm.
Land, legal potholes and a politcal backing
The residents’ complaints are old ones in the history of African infrastructure. Their petition describes the “forceful eviction” of plaintiffs from their lands and the destruction of their property. It adds that there is “no resettlement plan” for those displaced.
Parts of the disputed land are farmed or used to graze livestock. It also holds homes, mosques, shrines and family graves. For the people who live there, the plot is a livelihood and a community as much as an asset. They argue that they have not been properly compensated and that nobody has told them where they will go.
The petitioners also make two legal arguments that could prove more damaging than any appeal to sentiment. The first concerns Kenya’s environmental code, which they say demands a “mandatory” environmental impact assessment before any major project is carried out. They claim neither Dangote nor the Kenyan authorities have complied. The second concerns the constitution, which requires public participation. The residents say the consultation was not done.
Kenyan courts have a record of taking both arguments seriously. Big projects in the country have been stalled or reshaped before when the paperwork or the consultation fell short.
In 2019, a national environmental tribunal cancelled the licence for a 1,050MW coal plant on the Lamu archipelago, finding that its impact assessment had involved inadequate public participation.
The Environment and Land Court in Malindi, the same court now hearing the refinery dispute, upheld that decision in October 2025.
In 2018 a bench in Malindi ruled that the Lamu port, part of the same LAPSSET corridor, had gone ahead without proper consultation of the local community. It ordered Sh1.76bn in compensation for displaced fishermen. Payment took six years.
The government, meanwhile, sees things differently. On the day the order was issued President William Ruto was in Lagos touring Mr Dangote’s refinery. He told the Dangote family that Kenya is “100 per cent behind your project, our project”. He said the land had already been secured and that officials were working to spare the venture bureaucratic delay. Nobody in the courtroom in Malindi would agree that the land question is settled.
Mr Ruto’s confidence is a political statement. The judge’s order is a legal one. The two are now on a collision course.
Lamu as a test for East Africa
The timing is awkward for Mr Dangote and for Nairobi.
The refinery’s strategic value has risen sharply since the war involving Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, a key artery for global oil supplies, and pushed fuel prices sharply higher.
East Africa imports most of its refined fuel and is exposed to every shock in the Gulf. A refinery on the Kenyan coast would offer a local source of supply and, for Kenya, a claim to become a regional hub. Each month of delay leaves the region as vulnerable as it was when the strait closed.
Lamu is also a symbol. The refinery is one part of a multibillion dollar plan known as the Lamu Port, South Sudan and Ethiopia Transport corridor, or LAPSSET. The scheme envisages railways, pipelines, a power plant, roads and airports. Kenya has long presented it as a way to link its coast to landlocked neighbours and to remake a remote stretch of shoreline into a commercial gateway. A refinery would give the corridor an anchor tenant of real weight.
A stumble at the first ceremony hints at how much the rest of the plan depends on the consent of the people who live along it.
Whether the ceremony goes ahead on September 30th is still unclear. Mr Ruto is billed to commission the project and the first cargo of heavy machinery has reportedly reached Lamu port. Nothing in the court’s wording expressly cancels the event. Politicians and investors have committed too much to retreat over a ceremony.
Across Africa governments have often treated court orders on flagship projects as obstacles to be managed rather than rules to be obeyed. They have sometimes proceeded on a narrow reading of the text or simply on the assumption that nobody will enforce it. Kenya’s own judges have complained of officials who ignore their orders. If the ceremony proceeds the residents’ lawyers are likely to say so in court on October 14th.
If it is scaled back or moved the government will have shown that the order carries weight.
Kenya’s pitch as a safe choice for Dangote
Moreover, Kenya was, by some accounts, not Mr Dangote’s only option. He reportedly chose it over Tanzania and Uganda, partly because of the regulatory hurdles a project of this size might have faced there. The irony is plain. A country picked for its relative ease has produced a legal fight before a single stone is laid.
Regulatory friction is not a feature of any one jurisdiction. It travels with mega projects wherever they go and tends to appear where investors have spoken loudest and affected residents have been told least.
Mr Dangote has been here before. In Nigeria he first looked at Ogun state for his refinery before settling on Lagos, with land disputes a factor in the choice. The lesson he drew was to move rather than to wait. Lamu offers less scope for that instinct.
The refinery is bound up with a government corridor, a port and a national political project. Moving the site would mean starting again on most of the assumptions behind it. The company will have to make its case in court and to the community.
Lawyers who follow such disputes see the case as ordinary and manageable. “For a mega project like Dangote refinery, of course, you’ll expect such legal dispute,” one told Businessfront. “While it may not completely halt the project, it will definitely slow things down.” He added that it is up to the government to help hasten and resolve issues of this kind.
The strongest hand belongs to whoever can settle the underlying grievances. Compensation that residents regard as fair is one part. A credible resettlement plan is another. A company that can spend $16 billion on a refinery can afford to spend generously on the people who live where it will stand.
The risk of doing otherwise is larger than one lawsuit.
The first real test of Mr Dangote’s Kenyan venture has come before any construction began and it has come from the people whose land he needs.
