Former Vice President and Presidential Candidate of the African Democratic Congress, ADC, Atiku Abubakar, has told President Bola Tinubu to stop blaming the failures of his administration on his predecessors and account for the huge resources committed to Nigeria’s refineries under his watch.
Mr Atiku said it was an act of political escapism for Tinubu to focus on inherited liabilities when his administration financed the rehabilitation of the country’s refineries, celebrated their purported return to operation and presented the development as one of the achievements of his Renewed Hope Agenda.
In a statement issued by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, Atiku said available figures showed a sharp increase in the financial obligations of the Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna refineries under the Tinubu administration.
According to him, NNPC’s financial records showed that the combined obligations of the three refineries to the national oil company rose from about N4.52 trillion at the end of 2023 to N8.67 trillion at the end of 2024, representing an increase of approximately N4.15 trillion in one year.
“President Tinubu cannot have it both ways. When the cameras were rolling in November 2024, his government told Nigerians that the Port Harcourt refinery was back. NNPC announced that it was operating at 70 per cent capacity and expressly presented it as an achievement under President Tinubu’s leadership.
“Now that the celebration has turned into embarrassment, the same administration wants Nigerians to believe that the refineries are merely liabilities inherited from previous governments.
“Mr President, you claimed the refinery when you thought it was working. You cannot disown it now that the smoke has cleared,” Atiku said.
He said the situation had become more troubling following the admission by NNPC management that the refineries were operating at a “monumental loss”, resulting in the waste of public resources.
Atiku therefore demanded explanations on how the trillions of naira committed to the facilities had been spent and what Nigerians had received in return.
“So Nigerians deserve answers. If the combined obligations of these refineries jumped by more than N4 trillion in 2024 alone, what exactly did Nigerians receive in return?
“Where did the money go? Where are the products? Where are the savings Nigerians were promised? And where is the refinery your government celebrated before television cameras?
“You cannot spend three years claiming credit for everything that appears to work and blaming your predecessors for everything that fails. Leadership does not work that way,” he said.
Atiku said while Tinubu had repeatedly complained about the assets and liabilities inherited from previous administrations, Nigerians were now entitled to scrutinise the liabilities accumulated under his own government.
“President Tinubu repeatedly complains about the assets and liabilities he inherited. But after more than three years in office, Nigerians are entitled to examine the liability his own administration has become.
“The real liability today is a government that consumes trillions without delivering results; a government that celebrates projects before they work and searches for predecessors to blame when they collapse,” he said.
He said the refinery controversy was particularly painful because Nigerians continued to pay high prices for petrol while enormous public resources remained tied up in facilities that had failed to deliver sustainable refining capacity.
“Think about what N4 trillion could do for Nigeria. Think about the universities struggling with overcrowded lecture halls, hospitals without modern equipment, roads that have become death traps and communities without electricity or potable water.
“Yet trillions accumulate around refineries that the government itself now effectively acknowledges have been haemorrhaging public resources.
“This is not merely incompetence. It is an unforgivable failure of stewardship,” Atiku said.
He added that the contrast between the government’s triumphant refinery announcements in 2024 and subsequent concerns over their financial performance had become symbolic of what he described as the shortcomings of the Tinubu administration.
