News Highlights:
- Former President Olusegun Obasanjo criticized Nigeria’s overreliance on crude oil for economic survival, calling it a deadly mistake.
- Obasanjo lamented the persistent corruption and mismanagement within Nigeria’s oil sector, particularly the failure to maintain and revamp the country’s refineries.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has stated that Nigeria’s overreliance on crude oil for its economic survival remains one of the deadliest mistakes made by its leaders, reports Digital TimesNG.
Obasanjo who spoke during an interview with the Financial Times, said the country’s economy would have been much better if it had not relied on just crude oil production as its major source of revenue.
“I believe we made a deadly mistake by putting all our eggs in one basket by relying on oil. We had a very important commodity, gas, but we were flaring it,” he said.
Obasanjo also lamented the failure of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC), the International Oil Companies (IOCs), and other national oil companies to ramp up oil production to meet the country’s needs.
He pointed out that Nigeria could have invested more in agriculture as against crude oil stressing that “We ignored agriculture which could have been the centrepiece of our investment.”
On why Nigeria’s four refineries had remained moribund despite huge investments and attempts at revamping them, Obasanjo recalled how he persuaded Shell to run the country’s refineries, but the IOC declined, saying there was too much corruption in the sector.
“When I was president, I invited Shell to come and take equity and run our refineries for us. They refused and said our refineries were not well maintained. We brought amateurs instead of professionals.
“Then there was too much corruption with the way our refineries were maintained. They didn’t want to get involved in such a mess,’ he said.
The former Nigerian leader condemned the government’s disposition towards getting the refineries back to working properly, lamenting the lack of certainty surrounding when the facilities will start functioning.
“How many times have they told us that the refineries would be fixed, and at what price? Those problems as far as the government refineries are concerned have never gone. They have even increased.
“And if you have such problems, and the problems have not been removed, then, it means we are not going anywhere,” Obasanjo maintained.
He said that those benefiting from the lucrative business of fuel importation would make efforts to frustrate the Dangote Petroleum Refinery.
He spoke against the backdrop of remarks by the President of the Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, that some ‘mafias’ were making efforts to frustrate the $20 billion refinery.
“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,” Obasanjo stated.
The former President also criticised the style adopted by President Bola Tinubu in removing fuel subsidies, stating that the present administration should have first considered the hardship the decision to remove underpayments could cause people and how to ameliorate it.
“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 we have removed is not gone. It has come back,” the former president argued.
