Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has doubled down on his long-standing claim that Nigeria’s government-owned refineries are beyond repair and will never be functional again.
Despite promises from the current administration and pushback from government officials, the elder statesman maintains that public management of these facilities is fundamentally flawed.
Early in his tenure, President Bola Tinubu expressed optimism that the Port Harcourt refinery would begin production by December 2023, following rehabilitation efforts by the NNPCL and Maire Tecnimont SpA.
Obasanjo, however, dismissed these expectations from the start.
Recalling a conversation about the President’s timeline, Obasanjo stated:“Someone told me Tinubu said refineries would work by December. I told the person the refineries would not work. This is based on the information I received from Shell when I was president.”
In response to these skeptical remarks, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Tope Ajayi, argued that Obasanjo lacked the technical expertise to make such a judgment.
Speaking on a Daily Trust forum, Ajayi remarked:“Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, with due respect to him, is not an engineer. He’s not the engineer working at the refineries. So, the engineers and the NNPC gave the president a report and they have said that it will work by December this year.”
Ajayi further added:“We still have like four months to go. I will say that with all due respect to the former president, who is an elder statesman and our father, that what he said is his personal opinion and view. I will rather rely on the judgment of the engineers who are working at the refinery. So, I think we should wait until December.”
Speaking recently on Sony Irabor Live, aired on News Central, Obasanjo reiterated his stance, citing the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) project as a rare example of government success through partnership.
“One of the lessons that I learnt is that PPP (public-private partnership) works. Look, one project that has not been destroyed by the government in Nigeria is the NLNG (Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas), where the private sector has 51 per cent, and the Nigerian government has 49 per cent.”
Addressing the criticism regarding his lack of engineering credentials, he added:“See what we did with Nigerian railways. See what we did with the national shipping company. See what we are doing now, even with the NNPC. The NNPC has refineries, and I said to people that it will never work. And a man had the audacity to say, ‘Am I a chemical engineer?”
The former President revealed that during his administration, he attempted to persuade Shell to take over the refineries, but the oil giant repeatedly declined.
“When I was there, I called Shell. I said, ‘Look, please, I beg you, come and take 10 per cent equity and run the refinery for us.’ They said no. I said, ‘Okay, if you don’t want to take equity, don’t take equity. Come and run the refineries. They said no,” Obasanjo recounted.
He eventually sought a candid explanation from a top Shell official to understand the refusal.
According to Obasanjo, the official highlighted four critical reasons: the higher profitability of the upstream sector, the small scale of Nigerian refineries, poor maintenance, and deep-seated corruption.
Explaining the official’s feedback, Obasanjo said:“So, I called a top Shell official and I said, ‘Tell me, be honest with me. Why don’t you want to handle this?’ He said first, they want to let me know that they make most of their profits on the upstream, not the downstream. Number two: he said our refineries are too small… Number three: he said our refineries are not well-maintained. We call quacks and amateurs to come and maintain our refineries… Number four, there’s too much corruption around our refineries, and they don’t want to be part of that.”
