Presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Atiku Abubakar, has urged President Bola Tinubu to account for the trillions of naira spent on Nigerian refineries under his watch.
Atiku pointed out that the combined obligations of the Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna refineries to the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) rose from about ₦4.52 trillion at the end of 2023 to ₦8.67 trillion at the end of 2024.
He questioned the ₦4.15 trillion difference in a single year under the incumbent administration. He urged Tinubu to stop blaming former President Muhammadu Buhari for the country’s refinery woes and to account for the extra expenditure.
NEWSNGR reports that Atiku made the call in a statement on Sunday by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu.
He wondered why Tinubu’s administration, which announced in November 2024 that the Port Harcourt refinery had resumed operations at 70 per cent capacity and claimed victory for the development, is now distancing itself from the same facilities after NNPC’s own leadership admitted they were running at a “monumental loss.”
Demanding accountability for the money, Atiku asked: “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?”
He argued that the sum represented far more than a balance-sheet figure, pointing out that the money could have been channelled to other productive endeavours.
“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,” he said, describing the situation as “an unforgivable failure of stewardship” rather than mere incompetence.
Atiku insisted that a government cannot selectively claim credit for successes while attributing every failure to those who came before it.
