The possibility of the Federal Government selling off the four refineries operated by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL, cropped up again in far away Abu Dhabi, UAE, during the recent International Petroleum Exhibition. Olu Verheijen, President Bola Tinubu’s Adviser on Energy made this disclosure.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Verheijen said the Federal Government is looking for a partner with the requisite technical and financial clout to partner with or sell to. Nigeria owns four comatose refineries – two in Port Harcourt and one each in Warri and Kaduna, with combined installed capacity of 445,000 barrels per day. Several efforts to restore them through turnaround maintenance and outright reconstruction have failed.

The latest of such efforts took place under the immediate past Group Managing Director of the NNPCL, Mele Kyari. In November last year, Nigerians were excited over the news that the Port Harcourt Refinery had resumed producing petrol, only for operations to mysteriously grind to a halt again.

It is estimated that the nation has sunk well over $25bn into efforts to revive the refineries since the 1990s. The House of Representatives is probing how $18bn appropriated between 2010 and 2024 for the revival of the refineries was spent without results. In addition, Nigeria is spending through the nose on salaries and entitlements of the staff of the refineries. Reports indicate that NNPCL paid N69bn in staff salaries in 2020. Between 2021 and 2024 the refineries’ idle staff gulped a total of N272bn.

The NNPCL and its refineries had for long been turned into cash cows by successive segments of the ruling elite. The Labour unions in the industry sabotage every effort to scrap/sell them off. Aliko Dangote, owner of Dangote Refineries, was frustrated out of his effort to acquire the refineries, an experience that motivated him to pursue his dream $20bn, 650,000bpd plant.

We urge the Federal Government to go ahead and sell these refineries if they can find willing and capable buyers. The problem is beyond us. The funds used to keep these white elephants alive will be better invested to boost other sectors of the economy or diverted to the social sector.

The weapon of blackmail which the unions used to prevent government from taking the right decisions are no longer effective. Through Dangote Refinery and other conventional and modular refineries now flowering around us, Nigeria has regained its domestic refining capability. Our deregulated downstream oil industry even allows a measure of importation of products.

With Dangote’s plan to increase output to 1.4 million next year, it does not make sense to continue throwing money down the drain. The Federal Government and the NNPCL have proved incapable of operating refineries, despite the latter’s change of nomenclature.

Government should concentrate on regulation and governance of the oil sector.