Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, has called for the sell of the Port Harcourt Refinery.

His call follows the announcement by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, on Monday, that it is seeking to engage an Operations & Maintenance (O&M) firm to operate and maintain the refinery.

This, the national oil company had said, is to ensure reliability and sustainability towards meeting the nation’s fuel supply and energy security obligations.

But reacting to NNPC Limited’s announcement on Tuesday, Atiku said instead of handing the refinery over to a private firm to operate and maintain, it should be sold  to avoid the burden of debt.

The 2023 presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) noted that during President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, he had called for breaking of monopoly in all infrastructure sectors, including the refineries.

According to Atiku, this is to  give investors, both foreign and domestic, a larger role in funding and management.

He, however, regretted that his advice was not heeded to.

Atiku said it is important for NNPC Limited to explain to Nigerians the benefits this new  approach  will offer Nigeria and its citizens.

“I have always advocated for far-reaching reforms to reposition Nigeria’s oil sector and, indeed, other sectors of our economy. In particular, I had consistently called on the Buhari administration to break its monopoly in all infrastructure sectors, including the refineries, and give investors, both foreign and domestic, a larger role in funding and management,” he said via his social media handles.

“My position has been well laid out in The Atiku Plan (2018) and My Covenant With Nigerians (2022). But our suggestions fell on deaf ears.  First, they refused to privatize the refineries. They left them idle for years while paying humongous staff salaries.

“Then, they contracted a loan of US$1.5 billion for rehabilitation.

“Now, the current administration wants to turn the rehabilitated refinery to private concerns for operation and maintenance!

“Without prejudice to the terms of the agreement between the NNPC and the private operators, it would undoubtedly have been better if the NNPC had sold the refinery, pre-rehabilitation, to avoid the burden of debt.

“The NNPC  must explain to the satisfaction of Nigerians what benefits its newly discovered approach to privatisation will confer on Nigeria and Nigerians.”

Rehabilitation work has been ongoing at the refinery for over two years. In December 2023, NNPC Limited announced that it has achieved mechanical completion of rehabilitation work on Area 5 Plant of the refinery

Speaking during an inspection tour of the rehabilitation project, which also coincided with the 15th Refineries’ Rehabilitation Steering Committee Meeting, the Group Chief Executive Officer, NNPC Limited,  Mele Kyari, had said as of December 15, 2023, 84.4 percent of Area 5 Plant, a key component of the Rmrefinery, and 77.4 percent of the entire rehabilitation project have been completed.

“In our quest to ensure that this refinery is re-streamed to continue to deliver value to Nigerians, we made a promise that we will reach a mechanical completion of phase one of the rehabilitation project by the end of December and get the other plants running in 2024. Today, we have kept those commitments,” Kyari had stated.

In his remarks, the Chairman of NNPC Limited Board, Chief Pius Akinyelure described the milestone as “historic”, stressing that the board was proud of the staff and management of the refinery.

“We are just starting. We want to be at the highest level of production so that we will keep the prices of petroleum prices in the country stable in order to give comfort to our people and generate more revenue for our country,” Akinyelure had  noted.

Also speaking, the  Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, had said the milestone is another landmark of the ‘Renewed Hope’ agenda of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu