By AbduRafiu

The ding-dong between former President Olusegun Obasanjo and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) is good, disturbing as it may seem on the surface. It is a buckle-up clarion call to NNPCL. The nation has suffered enough in its hands. The argument that may be seen as degenerating into a brickbat is still over the state of the refineries.

The Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO) of the NNPCL, Mele Kyari, announced on December 30, 2024, that the Warri Refinery had been successfully, though partially, refurbished and was roaring back to life. The New Year gift by NNPCL to the nation took everybody by surprise, coming this soon after the old Port Harcourt refinery was reactivated and it became operational. Despite the stage of rehabilitation, it will produce 60 per cent of its installed capacity, which is 125, 000 barrels per day. GCEO Mele Kyari said with glee:

“If you see the plant you will see the reality yourself. This plant is running, we have not completed it 100 per cent, but we are on the other part of the plant as we progress, but currently this plant is running. You will see what is happening now and we are bringing products to the market.”

Port Harcourt refinery has been knocked back to life at 70 per cent capacity. According to reports, Kyari spoke to journalists he led on a tour of the facility in Warri, also witnessed by stakeholders. He went on: “There are many people who don’t think this is real. People don’t believe real things can happen in our country. We believe that this is right for our country and all of us have a stake, including the media so this can become a greater place as it is already happening. We want you to see that everything is real.”

Former President Obasanjo, who is not known to shrink from controversies, has thrust his chest out to count among “people who don’t think this is real”, that is, given his stature he is not perturbed if he is seen as leading the Doubting Thomases. He was swift in expressing doubts about the health feat of the refineries. He anchored his reservations on the aphoristic parable of a farmer and the size of his farm during planting season. The farmer made the world to believe that he had a large cultivation of yams. He boasted that he planted 200 yam mounds, whereas all he had was 100 heaps. At harvest the truth will inexorably catch up with him.

“So, if anybody tells you now that they (the refineries) are working, why are they not with Aliko in the market? Aliko will make his own refinery work. Not only make it work, he will make it deliver,” Obasanjo asked sarcastically.

“Whether we announce our own government refineries are working or not working, look, it is like they say in a Yoruba adage, ‘the man who plants 100 heaps of yams and says he has planted 200 heaps, they say after he has harvested 100 heaps of yam, he will also harvest 100 heaps of lies.”

In response, however, the NNPCL leadership, sure of itself, has said it would be pleased to have Obasanjo as a guest to be taken round the plants to see things for himself.

Given Obasanjo’s standing and public acclaim, it is hardly inconceivable that he would make comments without intelligence reports and without gathering information from competent sources connected with the refineries. The former President is not the only person who harbours doubts. Some experts in the oil industry believe it must have been a miracle to succeed in bringing the refineries back to life. One said: “We watch and see.”

Obasanjo hinges part of his doubts on his discussion with Shell that he had invited to take interest in running the refineries but Shell turned down the invitation. One of the four reasons Shell gave was that there was “too much corruption around the activities of our refinery and they would not want to get involved in that.” They gave other reasons bordering on the productive capacity of the refineries Shell considered too small.

NNPCL has on its part allayed fears, saying that it has expanded beyond oil and gas to become an integrated energy company. The company went further to explain that what has taken place was not the accustomed Turn-around maintenance (TAM) but a comprehensive overhaul. It was a comprehensive overhaul designed to meet what it described as world-class standards.

And we are reminded: “Today, NNPC Limited, is a private entity that has transitioned from being a loss-making organisation to becoming a profit-oriented global energy leader”, said the Chief Corporate Communications Officer of NNPCL, Olufemi Soneye.

Far back on August 4, 2021, the Buhari Administration approved $1.48 billion (U.S. Dollars) for the rehabilitation of both Warri and Kaduna refineries, $897 million for Warri and $586 million for Kaduna. For Warri in phases of first 21 months, 23 months and 33 months.

There has been no widespread follow-up report assuring the public that the Warri has started to produce Premium Motor Spirit alias PMS but more well known as petrol, which is the major product the generality of our people are ardently longing to have. ThisDay reported that as of the time Kyari and his team were on tour of the plant the refinery was going through a “test-run of its refining processes, and Naphtha had yet to be transferred to the Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) unit for production of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) or petrol or gas.”

If there are lingering doubts which Obasanjo and some experts in the oil industry harbour, NNPCL should see it as a burden and challenge they must quickly discharge. Indeed, the doubts must be seen as energy tonic to fasten belts and to fire them to disabuse the mind of everybody and prove the doubting Thomases wrong, and beat their chest that the two refineries, Port Harcourt producing 75 per cent of its installed capacity of 150,000 barrels a day and Warri producing at 60 per cent of 125,000 barrels, are back on stream. Were the claims to prove Obasanjo right and end as a hoax, not after Bola Tinubu has described the development in Warri as a historic milestone, it would be the biggest scandal of the century.

If many more of modular refineries from the present five in operation out of 25 licensed firms join what promises to be the longed-for competition, then the joy of Nigerian citizens will undoubtedly be full. The President said: “The restart of the Warri refinery today brings joy and gladness to me.” So must it be –and for us all! His joy is proof of his confidence in the NNPCL and its leadership. They cannot afford to let him and the nation down.

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