The coming on stream, or, rather the resurrection of the Port Harcourt Refinery is exceedingly good news at a time at which good news has become a very scarce commodity in our nation. It was, to say the least, a great and most embarrassing national shame that we have not had functioning refineries in a major oil producing country for decades and this long awaited breakthrough is most heartwarming to put it mildly.
How we keep allowing national assets to rot and go to waste right under our noses is still a mystery to me because corruption and ineptitude aside, I still cannot fathom how a nation could be so clumsy as to keep serially inflicting grotesque harm upon itself. The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited, NNPCL, is our one and only national oil company – Dangote Refinery, massive as it is, is still just another private company and cannot pretend to be our collective asset or try to displace our true and authentic IOC which was, is and shall remain the NNPCL.
We must all commend and encourage the NNPCL team as they reposition the oil and gas sector towards better days ahead for all Nigerians. I hope those with an axe to grind with the NNPCL’s Group Managing Director, Mele Kyari, and have been angling to take his job for themselves can be forthright enough to hide their faces in shame and leave him alone to fix the oil and gas sector for all of us.
Under Mele’s watch we have seen record restoration of our oil and gas production, drastic reduction in oil theft and now local refining of crude by our national oil company. We should all be proud of him and his team at NNPCL. Lastly and most importantly, I would urge all and sundry, regardless of their political leanings or inclinations to, at least, acknowledge President Bola Tinubu for this great milestone and incontestable achievement. I have many differences with my President as many are well aware but I will not fail to acknowledge, commend and celebrate him for what he does right and the resurrection of petroleum refining in Nigeria is something good he will always be remembered for. Onokpasa, a lawyer, is Chairman, Tinubu Media Support Group and writes from Abuja.
