“Buhari Spent over $19bn in 8 years trying to revive Nigeria’s Refineries” – Gov Abdullahi Sule Lament

Governor of Nassarawa state, Abdullahi Sule has announced that the previous administration of Muhammadu Buhari spent more than $19 billion used to build Dangote Refinery in order to restore the country’s oil refineries.

Nigeria has oil refineries in Kaduna, Port Harcourt and Warri but none of them are operational leading to the establishment of the Dangote Refinery, a move seen by industry experts as the beginning of the process. privatization of the oil industry. The Dangote Refinery, Africa’s largest refinery, had launched construction plans in 2017. But the project was commissioned in May 2023, days before Buhari’s government ended end

Sule has now criticized the money spent trying to rehabilitate Nigeria’s refineries.

“Look at how much President Buhari’s administration has spent repairing refineries. In eight years, he’s spent more than the $19 billion Dangote spent building an oil refinery,” Sule told Channels TV on Thursday, June 8.

“That’s one and a half times the size of our three refineries combined,”

He blamed subsidy payments for keeping Nigeria’s refineries out of business.

“From the government side, I think we didn’t do a good job. When (former) President (Buhari) came to power in 2015, the price of crude oil fell below $30. There was no subsidy at that time.

“Our three refineries in Nigeria currently have a combined capacity of 450,000 barrels per day, Dangote at 650,000. He spent $19 billion to build it. We spent, not on building a new one, but on maintaining these refineries; over $19 billion in eight years, but they haven’t been sustained,” he say.

Governor Sule also criticized the complicated nature of the maintenance of the refineries.

“The refinery is really a unit that holds water, crude oil and diesel, about five or six different parts that make up a refinery.

“The moment the government said we were going to spend $2 billion this year on the refinery. $2 billion has been spent and as far as the President knows, they have given $2 billion.

“Now when it comes to the three refineries we have in Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna. Then they say, now you take $700 million, now you take $800 million — by the time they take that money, it’s possible to fix only one component out of four that’s broken,” said Sule. note.

The governor said it would be ideal to allocate funds to one of the refining states to fix it before allocating the rest to the other states.

“So no work is done. These are the real realities of what’s happening, and that’s why none of the refineries are working. This is really the problem, we haven’t really managed it well.” he say.

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