Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has reiterated that Nigeria’s government-owned refineries will never work again, blaming poor maintenance, corruption and structural inefficiencies while advocating public-private partnerships.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has restated that Nigeria’s government-owned refineries will never function effectively again, despite ongoing rehabilitation efforts by the Federal Government. Speaking on Sony Irabor Live aired on News Central, Obasanjo maintained the position he had earlier expressed following President Bola Tinubu’s optimism that the Port Harcourt refinery would resume production by December 2023. Recalling his earlier reaction, Obasanjo said, “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.”
The former president argued that public-private partnerships remain a more viable model, citing the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas as a successful example. “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,” he said. Obasanjo also recalled efforts during his administration to get Shell to run the refineries, saying the oil major declined due to poor maintenance, small refining capacity and corruption. “Number four, there’s too much corruption around our refineries, and they don’t want to be part of that,” Obansanjo explained.
Obasanjo’s comments come despite earlier pushback from presidential aide Tope Ajayi, who dismissed his views and urged Nigerians to trust engineers handling refinery rehabilitation. But the former president doubled down on his criticism, saying repeated failures in state-run enterprises, including railways and shipping, reinforce his argument against government control. “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?” Obasanjo said, insisting structural inefficiencies and corruption have made government-owned refineries unsustainable.
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