Former senator Ben Murray-Bruce has urged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to put bold, capable and results-focused leaders in charge of reviving Nigeria’s Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna refineries and overhauling the petroleum industry.
Call for stronger leadership
In a statement issued on Wednesday, Murray-Bruce, widely known as “Mr Common Sense,” said Nigeria needed more “mad men” in public office—his term for courageous officials willing to challenge entrenched interests, dismantle ineffective systems and produce measurable results in the oil and gas sector.
He argued that the industry needed transformational leadership rather than more explanations, technical assessments and repeatedly postponed deadlines. The officials selected by Tinubu, he said, should be capable of returning the three state-owned refineries to commercially sustainable operations while also delivering a major increase in national crude production.
Murray-Bruce said the Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna plants should together achieve dependable processing capacity of at least 325,000 barrels per day. At that level, he said, the refineries could cover domestic fuel needs and give Nigeria the capacity to export refined petroleum products.
He also challenged the president to appoint managers who can raise crude output toward the administration’s goal of 4 million barrels per day by 2030.
Industry pressure
The intervention followed a demand from the Petroleum Products Retail Outlets Owners Association of Nigeria, or PETROAN, for the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited to match its promises with concrete action on the rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt and Warri refineries.
PETROAN’s call came after Tinubu met leaders of the Nigerian Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, known as NUPENG, at the Presidential Villa in Abuja. During that meeting, held less than a week earlier, the president assured the union that Nigeria’s government-owned refineries would become operational.
