Rufai Oseni has urged President Bola Tinubu to provide Nigerians with a detailed account of how $3 billion allocated to the rehabilitation of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited’s Port Harcourt refinery was spent, after the president said the facility would resume operations.
Questions over the refinery’s status
Speaking on a Friday edition of the Morning Show, Oseni criticised what he described as contradictory government messaging about the refinery’s turnaround project. He pointed to Tinubu’s 26 September 2024 congratulations to the NNPCL over what was presented as the successful restoration of the Port Harcourt facility.
Oseni said the president’s latest statement appeared to conflict with that earlier declaration. In his view, saying that the refinery would operate again raises the question of whether it had actually functioned after the government announced its revitalisation.
- Tinubu celebrated the refinery’s reported successful rehabilitation in 2024.
- The president has now said that the same Port Harcourt plant will return to service.
- Oseni questioned whether the $3 billion turnaround-maintenance expenditure produced the promised result.
Call for financial disclosure
The anchor said the scale of the spending required a transparent explanation from the president. He argued that the funds could have been misused or failed to deliver value and called for a full breakdown showing how the money was applied.
Oseni’s comments followed Tinubu’s remarks at the Presidential Villa in Abuja during a meeting with the leadership of the Nigerian Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, or NUPENG. At that gathering, the president said the NNPC refinery would come back into operation.
Expressing frustration with the government’s handling of the issue, Oseni said Nigerians could become deeply disillusioned when official statements appeared inconsistent. He argued that the country was being made to look unserious when a facility previously declared restored was later described as needing to work again.
He therefore appealed to Tinubu, whom he described as the nation’s father, to explain the use of the $3 billion before making further claims about the plant’s performance. Oseni’s central question was whether a refinery said to have been operational in 2024 could now require another assurance that it would operate.
