Aliko Dangote, the richest man in Africa, is a product of the Nigerian state. By deliberate policy choices, the state made Dangote what he is: Nigeria’s foremost oligarch. However, recent rifts between Dangote’s oil refinery and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC), as well as the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), not to mention the raid on his headquarters by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), suggest that all is not well with the long-running relationship between Dangote and the state. Yet, as a state-made commercial Leviathan, Dangote should serve the public good. Indeed, it is in Dangote’s own interests and those of the Nigerian state that their decades-old relationship is now properly recalibrated.