Bayo Ojulari, the chief executive officer (GCEO) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, has come under fire from the Petroleum Products Retail Outlets Owners Association of Nigeria (PETROAN) for remarks he made regarding the Port Harcourt refinery.
According to reports, Ojulari had previously stated that the Port Harcourt plant was suffering enormous losses, which prompted the shutdown of the establishment.
When state-owned refineries were shut down, Ojulari said, the Dangote refinery gave Nigerians a “breathing space,” and he urged them to thank God for it.
However, Joseph Obele, PETROAN’s national public relations officer (PRO), requested in a statement on Wednesday that the NNPC executive refrain from using the state-owned asset’s failure as justification for complimenting the Dangote refinery.
He criticized Ojulari’s assertion that Nigerians should be “thankful” only for the Dangote refinery’s success.
He acknowledged the strategic significance and admirable accomplishment of the privately operated refinery but stated that private investment cannot take the place of the government’s constitutional and financial duty to effectively manage public assets.
The Dangote Refinery is a private venture motivated by efficiency and profit. Nigerians, however, are the beneficiaries of national assets held in trust by NNPC. According to Obele, “one cannot be used as an excuse for the failure of the other.”
He issued a warning, saying that the NNPC leadership’s frequent public confessions of ineptitude might undermine years of policy efforts to support local refining, price stability, and job development, as well as destroy investor confidence and Nigeria’s energy security framework.
Obele urged the NNPC GCEO to realize that his role was to address issues rather than “escape behind a private refinery’s success.”
He called the claim that Dangote is now supplying Nigeria’s gasoline needs and that there is no hurry to reopen the Port Harcourt Refinery “most worrisome.”
According to Obele, “such a statement is bothersome, unacceptable, and indicative of leadership that is not solution-centric.”
Nigeria cannot continue to normalize waste, institutional failure, and the retroactive justification of bad choices, according to the PETROAN PRO.
He emphasized that acknowledging failure is only significant if it is accompanied by accountability, changes, and a convincing strategy to stop it from happening again.
In order “to demand the removal of the NNPC GCEO should the Port Harcourt Refinery fail to resume operations on or before 1 March 2026,” Obele added, he will work with civil society organizations and pertinent stakeholders to investigate legal possibilities.
He cautioned that protracted shutdown could result in rust, corrosion, and equipment failure after the enormous sums already spent on rehabilitation, making the entire overhaul effort pointless if immediate action is not taken.
