The Presidency Tinubu has replied to former President Olusegun Obasanjo over the claim that Port Harcourt Refinery will never work. Obasanjo had said Nigeria’s Nigeria’s refineries would never work as long as the government continued to hold onto them. President Bola Tinubu’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Tope Ajayi, said Obasanjo’s comment is just an opinion as he is not an engineer
FCT, Abuja – President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has replied to former president Olusegun Obasanjo over his comment that the Port Harcourt refinery in Rivers state will never work.
Obasanjo has said during an interview with TheCable, said Nigeria’s refineries would never function efficiently as long as they remained under government ownership.
Nigeria’s refineries will not work
He said: “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 president.”
Obasanjo is not an engineer
Responding to Obasanjo’s comment, Tinubu’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Tope Ajayi, said the former Nigerian leader shouldn’t make such comments as he is not an engineer.
Ajayi stated this while speaking on Daily Trust space themed: ‘Analysing the First 100 Days of President Tinubu’.
“Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, with due respect to him, is not an engineer. He’s not the engineer working at the refineries. So, the engineers and the NNPC gave the president a report and they have said that it will work by December this year,”
“We still have like four months to go. I will say that with all due respect to the former president, who is an elder statesman and our father, that what he said is his personal opinion and view. I will rather rely on the judgment of the engineers who are working at the refinery. So, I think we should wait until December.”
Earlier, it was reported that former President Olusegun Obasanjo has revealed why the four oil refineries in Nigeria will never work.
Obasanjo said the four refineries in Warri, Port Harcourt and Kaduna will never work as long as the government continues to hold onto them.
He disclosed that after much persuasion, the managing director of Shell at the time listed four reasons why the oil company wouldn’t get involved in running Nigeria’s refineries, including “too much corruption.”
