On refineries functionality doubts, Dangote is right – Gen Olanrewaju
By BASHIR ADEFAKA
As far back as 2012, Olanrewaju had told Vanguard in an exclusive interview that government could hold certain share like 20 percent stake in each of the oil refining factories but that individual citizens should be made to also buy shares without creating a moneybag situation that will hold the country into ransome on the long run.
Former Minister of Communications, Major General Tajudeen Olanrewaju (Rtd), has described as correct and fact-based, the Wednesday’s comment by President of the Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, suggesting that Nigeria’s state-owned refineries in Port Harcourt, Warri, and Kaduna may never function properly again, despite the reported $18 billion spent on their rehabilitation.
Speaking while hosting members of Global CEO Africa at the Dangote Petroleum Refinery, Dangote revealed that his decision to construct the 650,000-barrel-per-day facility followed the late President Umar Musa Yar’Adua administration’s refusal to sell the government refineries to him.
According to the world’s richest black man, he and other investors had acquired the refineries in January 2007 but were compelled to return them to government ownership after a change in administration. He observed that despite significant subsequent investment, the refineries have remained inoperative.
“The refineries we bought before, which were owned by Nigeria, were producing about 22 percent of PMS. We bought them in January 2007 but had to return them due to a change in government. The managing director at that time convinced Yar’Adua that the refineries would work,” he said.
“As of today, they have spent about $18 billion on those refineries, and they are still not working. I doubt very much if they will ever work,” he added.
Dangote likened the rehabilitation efforts to attempting to upgrade a 40-year-old car with modern technology, suggesting that even a new engine would not be compatible with the outdated framework.
Reacting to the statement, Retired General Tajudeen Olanrewaju, who was Chairman of the Presidential Review Committee on General Emmanuel Abisoye Panel on NNPC Reforms (1995) during General Sani Abacha era, said, “Dangote was right. That was one of the recommendations in the General Abisoye’s Report on NNPC Inquiry in 1995. My Committee reviewed the report and reached the same conclusion. I don’t know what the way forward could be given the long time it had taken to allow the refineries lay waste.”
Disposing of the refineries was of the recommendations in the General Abisoye’s Report on NNPC Inquiry in 1995, according to the General, who said Dangote was only reaffirming what his committee had recommended 30 years ago and that, now, the earlier the better for the state-owned refineries to be sold off to indigenous private investors who can turn them around to make them work.
As far back as 2012, Olanrewaju had told Vanguard in an exclusive interview that government could hold certain share like 20 percent stake in each of the oil refining factories but that individual citizens should be made to also buy shares without creating a moneybag situation that will hold the country into ransome on the long run.
