Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has expressed that the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has finally come in terms with the inevitable truth over the wastefulness of keeping the moribund refinery in Port Harcourt, beside others.
Atiku noted: "after gulping $1.5 billion, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited has now admitted that reopening the Port Harcourt Refinery is a waste of scarce resources.
"This belated admission validates my long-held position that Nigeria’s refineries should be privatised."
According to the former Vice President, "it is instructive that the Tinubu administration has finally come to terms with an inevitable truth:
"pouring public funds into moribund refineries is economically indefensible.
"Paying billions in salaries to facilities that produce not a single litre of petrol does not serve the national interest."
Atiku asserted that for years, he advanced this patriotic position and was vilified and accused of plotting to sell public assets to “friends.”
He mocked the Tinubu administration, saying, "Today, the facts have caught up with the rhetoric."
He maintained that decades of so-called turnaround maintenance have swallowed billions of dollars with nothing to show for it, exposing deep deficits in capacity, technical know-how, and financial discipline.
He stated that the latest push to “revive” these refineries was driven by political pressure, not economic sense. He advocated that politics must never substitute for sound, transformative policy.
Atiku declared: "Accordingly, any proposed refinery deal, including with foreign partners, should be discontinued, as it merely repeats failed models.
"Nigeria would have been better served by selling the refineries pre-rehabilitation to avoid ballooning debt and the steady depreciation of what have effectively become liabilities". -AA
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