You are not the engineer working on refineries, Presidency slam Obasanjo

The presidency has told the former President Olusegun Obasanjo that he is not the one who will decide whether Nigeria’s oil refineries will work or not.

The former ruler said he tried to get Nigeria’s oil refineries working but was not successful and suggested President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s plan to do the same will not work.

Obasanjo who twice led Nigeria, first as military head of state from 1976 to 1979 and later as an elected civilian president between 1999 and 2007 revealed during an exclusive interview with TheCable.

“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,” Obasanjo said.

However, the presidency said that Obasanjo is not in the position to make decisions regarding Nigeria’s oil refineries because he is not an engineer or a specialist in such fields.

Tope Ajayi who is the Senior Special Assistant to President Tinubu on Media and Publicity stated that what Obasanjo said is his personal opinion and nothing more.

According to Ajayi, Obasanjo should exercise patience till December and see what will happen because Tinubu relied on the projection of engineers to issue such statement about the refineries.

“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 said while speaking on the Daily Trust space themed: ‘Analysing the First 100 Days of President Tinubu’.

“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.”

President Tinubu had said in August that the petroleum refinery in Port Harcourt will start production by December 2023 after the completion of the ongoing rehabilitation contract between the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and Italian firm, Maire Tecnimont SpA.

The resuscitation of the refinery, if completed as promised by Tinubu, will lessen Nigeria’s reliance on oil importation and dependence on foreign refineries.

NNPCL said it has been working to revamp the refineries, which were shut down entirely in 2021 and produced little or no fuel over the past decade.