Petroleum marketers have thrown their weight behind President Bola Tinubu’s determination to revive the nation’s moribund refineries, rejecting former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s position that the facilities will never work again.
The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria and Petroleum Product Retail Outlet Owners Association of Nigeria supported Tinubu’s position that the refineries would work again.
In an interview with our correspondent, the National President of the Petroleum Product Retail Outlet Owners Association of Nigeria, Billy Gillis-Harry, said he believed Tinubu would succeed in restoring the refineries, arguing that Nigeria should not abandon strategic national assets because previous rehabilitation efforts failed.
The marketers’ position comes amid a renewed debate over the future of the Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna refineries, following Tinubu’s recent declaration that the facilities would return to operation and would be made profitable.
The President had, while receiving the leadership of the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers at the Presidential Villa, Abuja recently, said the refineries would be revived but stressed that mere operation would not amount to success.
