Former Minister Advises Tinubu To Repair, Sell Refineries

A former Nigerian minister, Olu Falae has advised the President Bola Tinubu-led government to repair and sell off non-functioning refineries.

Making this call while appearing on Channels TV’s Politics Today on Thursday, the former finance minister argued that the government was not capable of running the refineries.

Naija News reports that the most populous country in Africa and one of the biggest producers of crude oil has relied on fuel imports for many years to meet local demand due to underperforming state-run refineries in Warri, Port Harcourt, and Kaduna.

The former minister said that his “belief is that Nigeria’s problem with fuel and its price will be substantially resolved when we are able to repair and recommission our refineries and sell to companies that know how to run refineries. We should not try to run them ourselves because if we try to do so, politics will intervene and we will mismanage them. I am sorry to say this.

“So, we repair them and sell them to those who can manage refineries. And then, they will use those refineries to refine Nigerian crude oil and sell them to those us here in Nigeria. That reduces the influence of the dollar exchange rate substantially. I am almost certain that the day we do that, the price of fuel will come down almost substantially. I have no doubt that.”