Following the announcement by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) that it has concluded plans to hand over the Port Harcourt refinery, which is government-owned to private operators, the Presidential Candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the last election, Atiku Abubakar has tasked the NNPC to explain the benefits of its decision to Nigerians.
According to the former Vice President, in a post shared on his official X account on Tuesday, it would have been better for the NNPC to sell off the refinery to the private sector than to allow them to manage it because it might in the end incur debt for the nation.
News About Nigeria reported that, while lamenting the move by President Bola Tinubu’s led government to turn the rehabilitated refinery to private concerns for operation and maintenance, Atiku stated that the Muhammadu Buhari’s administration also failed in that sector because he failed to listen when he was President.
Atiku further stated that he has always advocated for reforms that would help reposition Nigeria’s oil sector and other sectors of the nation’s economy.
According to him, one of the ways he consistently preached to the last administration that would have been a game changer was that it should break its monopoly in all infrastructure sectors, including the refineries, and also allow investors, both foreign and domestic, a larger role in funding and management.
Atiku also lamented that all the suggestions he made to Buhari’s administration fell on deaf ears and they ended up leaving the refineries in the country idle for years while paying huge salaries to staff who were doing nothing.
He further stated that, after abandoning the refineries, the government then contracted a loan of US$1.5 billion for rehabilitation.
