Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has once again insisted that the National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) refineries will never work as the NNPC continues its search for technical partners to operate the Port Harcourt, Warri, and Kaduna refineries.
Obasanjo made the claim during a television interview aired on Saturday night by Sony Irabor Live, which was monitored by our correspondent.
He said, “One of the lessons that I learned 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.
“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?”
Obasanjo spoke about his failed attempt to woo Shell, a global energy firm, into running the refineries. “Look, 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,” he stated.
The former president narrated how he invited a top official of Shell for a one-on-one conversation to know why his offers were turned down.
“So, I called him, 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 downstream.
He stated that while they do not lose money on their downstream operations, they do not make a lot of money. It’s more of a service than a significant profit generator. So that is number one.
“Number two: he said our refineries are too small. This was when I was an elected president. He said our refineries are too small. One is 60,000 barrels, and another is 100,000 barrels. He said refineries at that time were in the range of 250,000 barrels to 300,000 barrels.
“Number three: he said our refineries are not well-maintained. We call quacks and amateurs to come and maintain our refineries. The refineries are not in good order.
He said, ‘Number four, there’s too much corruption around our refineries, and they don’t want to be part of that,” Obasanjo explained.
He recalled how lucky the country was when the President of the Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, informed him of the Dangote Group’s willingness to offer $750 million for 51% ownership of two of the facilities.
“Until one day, Aliko (Dangote) came and offered $750m to take two of the refineries; that will be 51 percent. I said, ‘Wow, God, you are really a God of miracles.’ I told Aliko to bring the money quickly. They brought the money, and they paid,” he said.
However, Balogun Owu went on to explain that his successor, the late Umar Yar’adua, reversed the deal after he left office, alleging he was under too much pressure from the NNPC.
He stated that only the current NNPC Group CEO, Bayo Ojulari, has spoken candidly about the situation of the refineries thus far.
“When I left office, NNPC went to my successor and convinced him. So I got up. I went to Umar. I said, ‘Look, Umar, maybe you don’t know; this is why we did what we did.’
He said, “Well, NNPC came to me.” I said, ‘But you know that NNPC cannot run this thing. He said he knew. I asked, “Then why did you give in? He said because of pressure. And I said, ‘Look, when you sell these refineries, you will not get 200 million (dollars) for them, because you will sell them as scrap.”
“Only the present NNPC head has told the country the truth. But in the meantime, I was told that they have spent about $16bn, which is only $4bn short of what Aliko used to build Africa’s largest refinery,” Obasanjo said.
In November 2025, the NNPC set a new deadline of June 2026 to finalize the selection of technical partners for refineries.
Ojulari stated that despite the rehabilitation and reopening of the Port Harcourt and Warri refineries in 2024 before they were later reclosed, the facilities were operating “well below international standards,” rendering their products commercially uncompetitive, particularly when compared to the privately owned Dangote refinery.
Dangote claims he built his refinery after the Yar’Adua regime overturned the sale of the NNPC refineries to him and his cronies. He also believes that the NNPC refineries may never operate again.
The NNPC communications office has failed to respond to queries seeking comment on the former president’s assertions.
