Former Vice-President and African Democratic Congress (ADC) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, has launched a fresh attack on President Bola Tinubu over the staggering sums pumped into Nigeria’s troubled state-owned refineries, accusing the administration of turning the facilities into a huge financial burden.
Atiku’s latest criticism comes amid renewed scrutiny of the Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna refineries after disclosures showed that their combined obligations to the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) rose from about ₦4.52 trillion in 2023 to ₦8.67 trillion in 2024.
The figures mean the three facilities accumulated about ₦13.2 trillion in funding exposure over the two years, even as they struggled to deliver sustained commercial refining output. NNPCL Group Chief Executive Officer, Bashir Bayo Ojulari, had earlier described the refineries as operating at a “monumental loss” and said the company was effectively leaking value through continued spending.
Atiku, in a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, said Tinubu could no longer blame previous administrations for the refinery mess after his government repeatedly presented the rehabilitation efforts as one of its major achievements.
He accused the President of “political escapism” for attempting to distance his administration from the liabilities associated with the facilities.
Atiku said: “President Tinubu cannot have it both ways. When the cameras were rolling in November 2024, his government told Nigerians that the Port Harcourt refinery was back. NNPC announced that it was operating at 70 per cent capacity and expressly presented it as an achievement under President Tinubu’s leadership.
“Now that the celebration has turned into embarrassment, the same administration wants Nigerians to believe that the refineries are merely liabilities inherited from previous governments.”
The opposition leader added: “Mr President, you claimed the refinery when you thought it was working. You cannot disown it now that the smoke has cleared.”
The Port Harcourt refinery was reopened amid considerable fanfare in November 2024, with the then NNPCL leadership presenting its return to operation as a major step towards restoring domestic refining capacity.
However, questions have continued to trail the sustainability of the facility and other government-owned refineries.
Atiku said the latest financial disclosures made the situation even more disturbing, asking what Nigerians got in return for the trillions committed to the facilities.
“If the combined obligations of these refineries jumped by more than ₦4 trillion in 2024 alone, what exactly did Nigerians receive in return?” he asked.
He also demanded answers on the whereabouts of the money, the products supposedly generated, the savings promised to Nigerians and the refinery whose return to operation was celebrated by the government.
According to Atiku, the government cannot continue to claim credit whenever a project appears successful and shift responsibility to previous administrations when the same project fails.
“You cannot spend three years claiming credit for everything that appears to work and blaming your predecessors for everything that fails. Leadership does not work that way,” he said.
He described the refinery spending as particularly painful at a time Nigerians continue to grapple with high petrol prices, arguing that the huge resources committed to the facilities could have been deployed to other sectors.
“Think about what ₦4 trillion could do for Nigeria. Think about the universities struggling with overcrowded lecture halls, hospitals without modern equipment, roads that have become death traps and communities without electricity or potable water,” Atiku said.
He accused the Tinubu administration of presiding over a cycle of huge expenditure, grand announcements and disappointing outcomes.
“This is not merely incompetence. It is an unforgivable failure of stewardship,” he declared.
Atiku further argued that the refinery controversy had become symbolic of what he described as the wider failures of the Tinubu administration.
“President Tinubu’s scorecard after more than three years is increasingly a story of fire and smoke — enormous expenditure, extravagant announcements and very little Nigerians can hold in their hands,” he said.
He warned that Nigeria could not afford another four years of what he called “paying for failure”.
“Mr President, stop blaming your predecessors. After more than three years, you are no longer merely managing inherited liabilities. You are creating your own — and increasingly, your government itself has become the biggest liability Nigerians are being forced to carry,” Atiku said.
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