{"id":194171,"date":"2026-02-09T14:10:45","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T13:10:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/uncategorized\/atiku-criticizes-nnpcl-over-salary-payments-to-refineries"},"modified":"2026-02-09T15:15:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T14:15:13","slug":"atiku-criticizes-nnpcl-over-salary-payments-to-refineries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/atiku-criticizes-nnpcl-over-salary-payments-to-refineries","title":{"rendered":"Atiku Criticizes NNPCL Over Salary Payments to Refineries"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. <\/strong><\/span>Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has criticised the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) following comments by its Group Chief Executive Officer, Bayo Ojulari, suggesting that reopening the Port Harcourt Refinery would amount to a waste of scarce resources.<\/p>\n<p>Recall that Ojulari, in his speech at the Nigeria International Energy Summit (NIES) in Abuja last week, said the money spent on revamping Nigeria\u2019s refineries in Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna was wasted.<\/p>\n<p>Reacting in a statement on Sunday, Atiku said the admission by the NNPCL leadership validated his long-held position that Nigeria\u2019s refineries should be privatised rather than continuously funded with public money.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAfter gulping about $1.5 billion, the NNPCL has now admitted that reopening the Port Harcourt Refinery is a waste of scarce resources,\u201d the statement read. \u201cThis belated admission validates my long-held position that Nigeria\u2019s refineries should be privatised.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The former vice president described the continued injection of public funds into non-functional refineries as economically unjustifiable, noting that billions of naira have been spent on salaries and maintenance without any tangible output.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is instructive that the Tinubu administration has finally come to terms with an inevitable truth: pouring public funds into moribund refineries is economically indefensible,\u201d Atiku said. \u201cPaying billions in salaries to facilities that produce not a single litre of petrol does not serve the national interest.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Atiku recalled that he had consistently advocated the privatisation of the refineries in the past but was criticised and accused of planning to sell national assets to cronies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor years, I advanced this patriotic position and was vilified and accused of plotting to sell public assets to \u2018friends,\u2019\u201d he stated. \u201cToday, the facts have caught up with the rhetoric.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He further faulted decades of turnaround maintenance on the refineries, arguing that they have consumed billions of dollars without results while exposing weaknesses in capacity, technical expertise and financial discipline.<\/p>\n<p>According to him, the most recent attempts to revive the refineries were motivated by political considerations rather than sound economic reasoning.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe latest push to \u2018revive\u2019 these refineries was driven by political pressure, not economic sense. Politics must never substitute for sound, transformative policy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPaying billions in salaries to facilities that produce not a single litre of petrol does not serve the national interest,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>He advised that any proposed refinery arrangement, including partnerships with foreign firms, should be discontinued, warning that such moves would only replicate past failures.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNigeria would have been better served by selling the refineries pre-rehabilitation to avoid ballooning debt and the steady depreciation of what have effectively become liabilities,\u201d Atiku added.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Nigeria<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has criticised the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) following comments by its Group Chief Executive Officer, Bayo Ojulari, suggesting that reopening the Port Harcourt Refinery would amount to a waste of scarce resources. Recall that Ojulari, in his speech at the Nigeria International Energy Summit (NIES) [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":194169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,29,28,14,2660],"tags":[254],"class_list":["post-194171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-head-lines","category-homepage-english","category-policy","category-to-homepage","tag-nigeria"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Atiku Criticizes NNPCL Over Salary Payments to Refineries - Nigeria<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has criticised the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) following co ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/atiku-criticizes-nnpcl-over-salary-payments-to-refineries\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Atiku Criticizes NNPCL Over Salary Payments to Refineries\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has criticised the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) following co ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/atiku-criticizes-nnpcl-over-salary-payments-to-refineries\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nigeria\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-02-09T13:10:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-02-09T14:15:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2026\/02\/sm_1770646480.600491.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"563\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/atiku-criticizes-nnpcl-over-salary-payments-to-refineries#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/atiku-criticizes-nnpcl-over-salary-payments-to-refineries\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Atiku Criticizes NNPCL Over Salary Payments to Refineries\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-02-09T13:10:45+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-02-09T14:15:13+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/atiku-criticizes-nnpcl-over-salary-payments-to-refineries\"},\"wordCount\":449,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/atiku-criticizes-nnpcl-over-salary-payments-to-refineries#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2026\/02\/sm_1770646480.600491.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Nigeria\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"head lines\",\"homepage-english\",\"Policy\",\"to-homepage\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/atiku-criticizes-nnpcl-over-salary-payments-to-refineries#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/atiku-criticizes-nnpcl-over-salary-payments-to-refineries\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/atiku-criticizes-nnpcl-over-salary-payments-to-refineries\",\"name\":\"Atiku Criticizes NNPCL Over Salary Payments to Refineries - 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