Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar has asked the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited to discontinue any proposed deal for its refineries.
On November 24, 2025, NNPC announced plans to partner with
private refinery operators to repair and maintain its refineries, leveraging
their technical expertise.
NNPC said agreements will be finalised in mid-2026.
On February 4, Bayo Ojulari, the group chief executive
officer (CEO) of NNPC, said the company is discussing a potential partnership
with a Chinese firm over one of the state-owned refineries.
However, in a statement on Sunday, Abubakar said any deal,
including with foreign partners, repeats failed models.
“The latest push to “revive” these refineries was driven by
political pressure, not economic sense. Politics must never substitute for
sound, transformative policy,” he said.
“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.”
Abubakar said when he previously suggested the idea that the
refineries should be sold, he was accused of plotting to sell the national
assets to his “friends,” but now, the administration of President Bola Tinubu
have embraced the idea.
“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 vice
president said.
“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.
“For years, I advanced this patriotic position and was
vilified and accused of plotting to sell public assets to “friends.”
“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.”
In July 2025, Ojulari said it is becoming a “bit more”
complicated to revamp state-owned refineries.
NNPC had said it spent N100 billion on the rehabilitation of
the nation’s refineries in 2021.
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