Selling Nigeria’s refineries too quickly could create more problems than it solves — that’s the warning from Professor Wumi Iledare, a top petroleum economics expert.
He’s asking President Bola Tinubu and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) to avoid rushing into any refinery sales. Instead, he believes they should use a smarter, more transparent plan that truly benefits the country.
Iledare’s advice came just after NNPCL’s CEO, Bayo Ojulari, told Bloomberg that the company may consider selling the refineries once a review is complete. These include the Port Harcourt, Warri, and Kaduna plants.
But Iledare says the real problem isn’t about who owns the refineries — it’s about how badly they are being run.
“Ownership is not the main issue,” he said. “It’s the lack of proper management that’s hurting performance.”
He warned that selling the refineries without fixing the deeper issues in governance could lead to the same old failures and might even put Nigeria’s fuel supply at risk.
To fix this, Iledare suggested a better idea: public-private partnerships and deals where companies are rewarded based on how well they run the plants. This fits with the goals of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021, which encourages more business-minded operations.
But he also warned that privatising the refineries shouldn’t lead to a few powerful people taking control. The real goal, he said, should be about creating value and growing the oil sector in a way that lasts.
Back in May 2025, NNPCL had announced the shutdown of the Port Harcourt refinery to carry out maintenance and a review.
Yet, the Warri and Kaduna refineries are still not running, even though large amounts of money have been spent trying to fix them.
To make things worse, Dangote Group’s president, Aliko Dangote, recently said that these refineries may never work again.
Now, with different opinions flying around, experts like Iledare are reminding the government that long-term thinking and real reforms are what the sector truly needs — not a rushed sale.
