The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the 2023 elections, Atiku Abubakar, has expressed his opinion on the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited‘s (NNPCL) decision to transfer the Port Harcourt refinery to a private company for operation and maintenance.
Atiku believes that instead of this move, the NNPCL should have sold the refinery to avoid accumulating debt.
He emphasizes that the country’s oil firm needs to clarify the benefits that Nigerians will receive from this handover to a private company.
The former Vice President expressed his frustration on X, stating that all of his suggestions were ignored.
He wrote, “I have always advocated for far-reaching reforms to reposition Nigeria’s oil sector and, indeed, other sectors of our economy. In particular, I had consistently called on the Buhari administration to break its monopoly in all infrastructure sectors, including the refineries, and give investors, both foreign and domestic, a larger role in funding and management.
“My position has been well laid out in The Atiku Plan (2018) and My Covenant With Nigerians (2022). But our suggestions fell on deaf ears. First, they refused to privatize the refineries. They left them idle for years while paying humongous staff salaries.
“Then, they contracted a loan of US$1.5 billion for rehabilitation. Now, the current administration wants to turn the rehabilitated refinery to private concerns for operation and maintenance!
“Without prejudice to the terms of the agreement between the NNPC and the private operators, it would undoubtedly have been better if the NNPC had sold the refinery, pre-rehabilitation, to avoid the burden of debt.
“The @nnpclimited must explain to the satisfaction of Nigerians what benefits its newly discovered approach to privatisation will confer on Nigeria and Nigerians. -AA”
