Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said beneficiaries of the fuel importation will frustrate the operation of Dangote Petroleum Refinery.
Mr Obasanjo, who disclosed this during an interview with the Financial Times, also said Nigeria is still paying subsidy on petroleum products due to the high inflation rate.
“Aliko’s investment in a refinery, if it goes well, should encourage both Nigerians and non-Nigerians to invest in Nigeria.
“If those who are selling or supplying refined products for Nigeria feel that they will lose the lucrative opportunity, they will also make every effort to get him frustrated,” Mr Obasanjo said, faulting the way and manner in which President Bola Tinubu announced the removal of fuel subsidy.
He said the government should have implemented some measures before the subsidy removal.
“There’s a lot of work that needs to be done. Not just wake up one morning and say you removed the subsidy. Because of inflation, the subsidy that was removed is not gone. It has come back,” Mr Obasanjo added.
He also highlighted the need for investor confidence in Nigeria, stating: “You have to go from a transactional economy to a transformational economy.”
The former president also recalled how he persuaded Shell Plc to run Nigeria’s refineries, but the oil company rejected the offer.
“When I was president, I invited Shell, and I said, look, come and take equity participation and run our refineries for us. They refused. They said our refineries have not been well maintained.
“We have brought amateurs rather than bringing professionals. They said there’s too much corruption with the way our refinery is run and maintained. And they didn’t want to get involved in such a mess,” he stated.
Speaking on the difficulty of fixing refineries and the promises made by successive administrations, the elder statesman said: “How many times have they told us that? And at what price?
“Those problems, as far as the government refineries are concerned, have never gone away. They have even increased. So if you have a problem like that and that problem is not removed then you aren’t going anywhere.”
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