Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has said recent admissions by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) on the Port Harcourt Refinery reinforce his long-standing position that Nigeria’s state-owned refineries should be privatised.
In a strongly worded statement, Atiku criticised what he described as years of wasteful public spending on non-performing assets, arguing that continued investment in moribund refineries is economically unjustifiable.
According to him, “After gulping $1.5bn, 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.”
The former presidential candidate said the development represents what he called an unavoidable reality that successive administrations had failed to confront.
“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,” he stated.
Atiku also recalled facing criticism in the past for advocating the sale of public refineries, noting that his position was often misrepresented.
“For years, I advanced this patriotic position and was vilified and accused of plotting to sell public assets to ‘friends’,” he said.
He argued that years of turnaround maintenance programmes had delivered little value despite huge financial commitments.
“Today, the facts have caught up with the rhetoric. 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 added.
The former Vice President further alleged that recent refinery rehabilitation efforts were politically motivated rather than driven by economic realities.
“The latest push to ‘revive’ these refineries was driven by political pressure, not economic sense. Politics must never substitute for sound, transformative policy,” Atiku said.
He warned against entering new refinery partnership arrangements, particularly with foreign entities, describing such moves as a continuation of previously failed approaches.
“Accordingly, any proposed refinery deal, including with foreign partners, should be discontinued, as it merely repeats failed models,” he noted.
Atiku maintained that Nigeria would have benefited more from an early sale of the refineries before extensive rehabilitation spending.
“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,” he concluded.
