AgegePulse Magazine
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said the four oil refineries in Nigeria will never work.
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NIGERIA'S REFINERIES WILL NEVER WORK -Obasanjo |
The four refineries are located in Warri, Port Harcourt and Kaduna states.
Obasanjo said the refineries will never work as long as the government continues to hold onto them. The former president who stated this in an interview, said Shell Oil Development Company turned down his offer to them to run the refineries.
He disclosed that after much persuasion the managing director of Shell, at the time, listed four reasons why the oil company wouldn’t get involved in running Nigeria’s refineries, including “too much corruption in refineries.”
Recall that President Bola Tinubu last month assured that the petroleum refinery in Port Harcourt will start working by December 2023.
Tinubu, had in a statement by former presidential spokesman, Dele Alake, in August, said the “Port Harcourt refineries will start production by December 2023 after the completion of the ongoing rehabilitation contract between NNPCL and Italian firm, Maire Tecnimont SpA.”
The President stated this when he met with labour unions at the State House in Abuja to halt the last nationwide protest.
Labour, had among other things, demanded the government’s commitment to getting local refineries to work, an objective that has gulped about N11.35 trillion in the last 10 years.
But responding to a question on the state of Nigeria’s refineries in the interview, Obasanjo said, “They will not work as long as the government is keeping hold of them. When I was president, I invited Shell to a meeting. I told them I wanted to hand over the refineries for them to help us run. They bluntly told me they would not. I was shocked.
