NNPCL’s $1.5bn Waste Proves That My Privatisation Call Was Right – Atiku

Atiku Abubakar

Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, has said that the NNPCL’s admission that the $1.5bn rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt Refinery was a waste of scarce resources validates his long-standing call for the privatisation of Nigeria’s state-owned refineries. He recently had his say via his social media page, and Nigerians have been reacting.

According to him, the fact that the Port Harcourt facility is not profitable despite $1.5bn having been spent on rehabilitating it proves that the continued public funding of moribund refineries is economically unjustifiable.

He added that such spending does not serve the national interest and must be stopped.

His words, “After gulping $1.5bn, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited has now admitted that reopening the Port Harcourt Refinery is a waste of scarce resources.

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

It is instructive that the Tinubu administration has finally come to terms with an inevitable truth: pouring public funds into moribund refineries is economically indefensible.

For years, I advanced this patriotic position and was vilified and accused of plotting to sell public assets to ‘friends.’ Today, the facts have caught up with the rhetoric.

Nigeria would have been better served by selling the refineries pre-rehabilitation to avoid ballooning debt and the steady depreciation of what have effectively become liabilities.”

WOW.