Hope of Nigerians to see a reduction in the pump price of PMS may have been dashed as former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said the nome of the four refineries in Nigeria will ever work again.
President Bola Tinubu, more than two months ago, assured Nigerians that the Port Harcourt Refinery will start production by December, 2023.
He gave the assurance in the wake of the increment in the PMS pump price, thrice within two months into his administration, following the removal of the subsidy regime.
However, Obasanjo has disclosed that they will never be functional again, the promise by Tinubu notwithstanding!
He added that government-owned refineries would never work as long as they are been run as public enterprise by the government.
Speaking in an interview recently with the Cable.ng, the former president gave deep insights into the problems generally bedeviling the country.
He reportedly claimed that Shell Oil Development Company revealed to him, while he was in office, that the refineries cannot work.
He said the revelation and the refusal of the oil company to run the four refineries made him to offer to sell them off during his presidency.
Obasanjo disclosed that his administration offered the refineries to be run by Shell, but the oil company outrightly turned down the offer.
The former president said the Management of Shell, at that time, gave him four reasons why it would not be involved in running the refineries, owned by the Nigerian government.
Listing “too much corruption” as a major reason, Obasanjo said: “They will not work as long as the government is keeping hold of them.
“When I was president, I invited Shell to a meeting. I told them I wanted to hand over the refineries for them to help us run. They bluntly told me they would not. I was shocked.
“I repeated the request and they stood their ground. When the meeting was over, I asked their big man (MD) to wait behind for a little chat.
“Then I asked him why they were so hesitant on not taking over the refineries. He said did I want to hear the truth? I said yes. He listed four reasons.
“One, he said Shell makes its money from upstream and that is where its interest lies.
“Two, he said they only do downstream or retail as a matter of service.
“Three, he said our refineries would be bad business for them. That globally, companies are going for bigger refineries because of the economics of refineries.
“Four, he said there is too much corruption in refineries.
“I thanked him for his honesty. I knew we had a big problem on our hands,” he said.
Obasanjo said, after he had given up all hope, two Nigerian multi-billionaire businessmen, Alhaji Aliko Dangote and Mr Femi Otedola, came up with offers to buy two of the four refineries.
“I had virtually given up hope on the refineries when God did a miracle. Aliko Dangote and Femi Otedola approached me.
“They said they would be interested in buying two of the four refineries. They said they would buy a 51 per cent stake in Port Harcourt and Kaduna.
“I was over the moon. I said, finally, this burden would be taken off the neck of the government.
“They offered $761 million and paid in two instalments.
“Unfortunately, Umaru [late former President Yar’Adua] cancelled the sale and returned the refineries to NNPC. Today, we are still where we were,” he said.
The former president said he dismissed the renewed hope of them functioning again, as implicitly stated by President Tinubu.
“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 the president,” Obasanjo was reported to have said during the interview.
