The battle over the survival of the much talked about Dangote refineries is far from over according to former President Olusegun Obasanjo as he predicts that those who benefit from the fuel importation business will do all they can to frustrate the refinery from being fully operational.
In a recent interview, the former president said, “If those who are selling or supplying refined products for Nigeria feel that they will lose the lucrative opportunity, they will also make every effort to get him frustrated.” Obasanjo said the refinery should serve as a point of pride for Nigerians and non-Nigerians alike, but selfish interests might override the common benefits. “Aliko’s investment in a refinery, if it goes well, should encourage both Nigerians and non-Nigerians to invest in Nigeria,” he said.
The former president recalled some challenges he faced in the oil sector when he was president, saying “When I was President, I invited Shell and I said, look, come and take equity participation and run our refineries for us. They refused. They said our refineries have not been well maintained.
“We have brought amateurs rather than bringing professionals. They said there’s too much corruption with the way our refinery is run and maintained. And they didn’t want to get involved in such a mess,” he explained.
On the promises that the refineries will be fixed, he asked, “How many times have they told us that? And at what price?
“Those problems, as far as the government refineries are concerned, have never gone away. They have even increased. So, if you have a problem like that and that problem is not removed then you aren’t going anywhere.”
The former President also condemned the style adopted by President Bola Tinubu to remove fuel subsidies, stating that the present administration should have first considered the hardship the subsidy removal could cause people and how to ameliorate the same.
“There’s a lot of work that needs to be done. Not just wake up one morning and say you removed the subsidy. Because of inflation, the subsidy that we have removed is not gone. It has come back,” the former President stressed.
He said there must be investor confidence in Nigeria, adding, “You have to go from transactional economy to transformational economy.”
Obasanjo, speaking further, disclosed that Nigeria made a deadly mistake by putting all its eggs in what he called one basket of oil, ignoring gas and agriculture.
“I believe we made a very, very deadly mistake. We put all our eggs in one basket of oil. We even ignored gas. We were flaring gas, which is a very important commodity
“We ignored agriculture, which should have been the centerpiece of our economic development,” Obasanjo stated.
