Atiku Abubakar, the former vice president, has requested that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited halt any proposed agreement involving its refineries.
On November 24, 2025, NNPC declared its intention to collaborate with private refinery operators in order to use their technical know-how for refinery maintenance and repairs.
According to NNPC, deals will be concluded by the middle of 2026.
NNPC’s group chief executive officer (CEO), Bayo Ojulari, stated on February 4 that the business is in talks with a Chinese company about a possible partnership with one of the state-owned refineries.
However, in a statement on Sunday, Abubakar said any deal, including with foreign partners, repeats failed models.
“The latest push to “revive” these refineries was driven by political pressure, not economic sense. Politics must never substitute for sound, transformative policy,” he said.
“Accordingly, any proposed refinery deal, including with foreign partners, should be discontinued, as it merely repeats failed models.
“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.”
According to Abubakar, the administration of President Bola Tinubu has suddenly accepted the concept that the refineries should be sold, despite his earlier suggestion that he was conspiring to sell the national assets to his “friends.”
“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,” the former vice president said.
“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. Paying billions in salaries to facilities that produce not a single litre of petrol does not serve the national interest.
“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. Decades of so-called turnaround maintenance have swallowed billions of dollars with nothing to show for it, exposing deep deficits in capacity, technical know-how, and financial discipline.”
Ojulari stated in July 2025 that the process of modernising state-owned refineries is getting “a bit more” difficult.
NNPC had said it spent N100 billion on the rehabilitationof the nation’s refineries in 2021.
