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Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has lambasted President Bola Tinubu over the liabilities of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL).
Atiku, who is also the African Democratic Congress (ADC) presidential candidate for the 2027 polls, said the President should account for trillions of naira allegedly spent on NNPCL by his administration and stop hiding behind the failures of his predecessors.
The former Vice President, in a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, said it was an extraordinary act of political escapism for President Tinubu to now speak about inherited refinery liabilities.
He noted the present administration financed the NNPCL facilities, celebrated their supposed rehabilitation and presented their return to operation as evidence of the success of his Renewed Hope Agenda.
According to him, “NNPC’s financial records show that the combined obligations of the Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna refineries to the national oil company rose from approximately ₦4.52 trillion at the end of 2023 to ₦8.67 trillion at the end of 2024 — an increase of about ₦4.15 trillion in a single year under President Tinubu.
“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 the indictment becomes even more devastating because Tinubu’s own NNPC leadership has subsequently admitted that the refineries were operating at a “monumental loss” and that the country was effectively wasting money.
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Furthermore, the ADC candidate added, “So Nigerians deserve answers. If the combined obligations of these refineries jumped by more than ₦4 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.
“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.”
“Think about what ₦4 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.”
