Nigeria’s former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, has said the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Nigeria’s state-owned oil company, has strengthened his long-standing argument that Nigeria should privatise its government-owned refineries.
Atiku made the claim in a statement posted on his X (formerly Twitter) account on Sunday, 8 February 2026, after remarks credited to NNPCL suggested the Port Harcourt Refinery, a major refinery in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, in southern Nigeria, is not profitable even after $1.5bn was spent on rehabilitation.
Okay News reports that Atiku’s reaction followed comments by the NNPCL Group Chief Executive Officer, Bayo Ojulari, who spoke on Wednesday and said the state-owned refineries were costing the country heavily, leading his team to stop operations to avoid further losses.
Ojulari said Nigerians had high expectations after large sums were spent, adding that the company faced intense pressure to deliver. He said, “We were running at a monumental loss to Nigeria,” and explained that spending on operations and contractors was not producing value.
In his response, Atiku said the company’s admission, although late, supports his view that continued public funding of refineries that do not deliver results cannot be justified.
He said the reopening of the Port Harcourt Refinery after consuming $1.5bn had now been described as a waste of scarce resources, and added that this supports his call for privatisation.
Atiku also said it was important that the administration of Nigeria’s President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, had, in his view, accepted what he called an “inevitable truth” that continued spending on refineries that do not work is not economically defensible.
He criticised what he described as the continued payment of large salaries to facilities that, according to him, produce no petrol, arguing that such spending does not serve the national interest.
The former vice president said he had repeatedly supported privatising the refineries, but was previously attacked and accused of trying to sell national assets to associates. He said years of turnaround maintenance had consumed billions of dollars without delivering results, pointing to problems in capacity, technical ability, and financial discipline.
Atiku further argued that the most recent push to revive the refineries was driven more by political pressure than economic reasoning, and warned that politics should not replace sound policy choices.
He said any proposed arrangement around the refineries, including plans involving foreign partners, should be dropped because, in his view, they repeat approaches that failed in the past.
Atiku added that Nigeria would have been better served if the refineries were sold before rehabilitation, saying that would have helped the country avoid rising debt and the steady loss in value of assets he described as liabilities.
