NEWS UPDATE: NNPCL’S $1.5BN PORT HARCOURT REFINERY FAILURE VALIDATES PRIVATISATION CALL — ATIKU

NNPCL’S $1.5BN PORT HARCOURT REFINERY FAILURE VALIDATES PRIVATISATION CALL — ATIKU

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has said the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited’s (NNPCL) acknowledgment that the $1.5 billion rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt Refinery failed to deliver value confirms his long-standing advocacy for the privatisation of Nigeria’s state-owned refineries.

Atiku made the assertion on Sunday in a statement shared via his official X (formerly Twitter) account, reacting to recent comments credited to NNPCL management that the refinery is operating at a significant loss despite the huge public investment.

The Group Chief Executive Officer of NNPCL, Bayo Ojulari, had disclosed that the country’s government-owned refineries were recording what he described as a “monumental loss,” prompting management to suspend operations to prevent further financial erosion.

According to Ojulari, expectations were high following the rehabilitation exercise, but operational realities revealed that the refineries were consuming more resources than they generated.

“We were spending a lot of money on operations and contractors, but when you look at the net outcome, value was being lost,” Ojulari said, explaining that continued operations under such conditions were unsustainable.

Reacting to the development, Atiku said the admission, though delayed, reinforces his position that continued public funding of non-performing refineries is economically unjustifiable.

“After gulping $1.5 billion, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited has now admitted that reopening the Port Harcourt Refinery is a waste of scarce resources,” he said.

“This belated admission validates my long-held position that Nigeria’s refineries should be privatised.”

The former vice president further argued that decades of turnaround maintenance initiatives had consumed billions of dollars without delivering functional refineries, exposing systemic weaknesses in technical capacity, financial discipline, and institutional accountability.

Atiku criticised what he described as the continued payment of salaries and operational costs to facilities that produce no petrol, stating that such expenditure does not serve the national interest.

He also noted that previous attempts to revive the refineries were driven largely by political pressure rather than sound economic reasoning, warning that political considerations should not replace evidence-based policy decisions.

“It is instructive that the current administration has finally come to terms with an inevitable truth: pouring public funds into moribund refineries is economically indefensible,” Atiku added.

The former vice president recalled that his earlier calls for privatisation were met with accusations that he intended to sell public assets to associates, a claim he dismissed as unfounded.

“For years, I advanced this patriotic position and was vilified. Today, the facts have caught up with the rhetoric,” he said.

Atiku further advised that any proposed refinery arrangements involving foreign partners should be carefully reviewed or discontinued if they merely replicate approaches that have failed in the past.

He concluded that Nigeria would have been better served by selling the refineries before the costly rehabilitation exercise, arguing that the facilities have effectively become financial liabilities rather than national assets.