After learning that the contentious sale of the Port Harcourt Refinery to a consortium led by Dangote Oil was not in the best interests of the country, the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua revoked the deal, according to a group chaired by human rights attorney Femi Falana (SAN).
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo sold Bluestar Oil a 51 percent stake in the Port Harcourt Refinery for $561 million, according to a statement released by the Alliance on Surviving COVID-19 and Beyond (ASCAB) on Friday.
According to ASCAB Chair Falana, Bluestar Oil was a partnership of Zenon Oil, Transcorp, and Dangote Oil. In a related deal, Bluestar Oil purchased 51 percent of Kaduna Refinery on May 28, 2007, for $160 million.
Dangote Oil, Zenon Oil, and Transcorp were three local corporations that joined forces to become Bluestar Oil. Prior to the transaction, President Obasanjo had used “blind trust” to purchase significant shares in Transcorp. Concerns regarding conflicts of interest were raised by Falana, who claimed that numerous interest groups in the nation questioned the morality and legality of the purchases because they were completed during the final days of the Obasanjo Administration.
According to the Privatization and Commercialization Act, the Vice President chairs the National Council on Privatization (NCP), which is in charge of selling public companies, the senior attorney noted.
Obasanjo, however, allegedly ignored Atiku Abubakar, the vice president at the time, and oversaw the privatization of a number of important national resources.
According to Falana, President Obasanjo paid Bluestar Oil US$561 million on May 17, 2007, for a 51 percent share in the Port Harcourt refinery.
He clarified that on May 28, 2007, President Obasanjo paid $160 million to Bluestar Oil for 51 percent of the Kaduna Refinery’s shares.
He pointed out that the two influential trade unions in the oil sector, the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) and the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), opposed the privatization of the two refineries on the grounds of due process violations and conflicts of interest.
Additionally, they claimed that the country had been underpaid because the $516 million shares in the Port Harcourt refinery were worth $5 billion.
“In June 2007, both unions went on strike for four days, nearly paralyzing the Nigerian economy, because they believed the arrangements were not in the country’s best interests. The federal administration promised that the deals will be thoroughly scrutinized, which is why the strike was called off,” Falana said.
He claimed that then-President Umaru Yar’adua canceled the alleged privatization of the Port Harcourt and Kaduna refineries once the federal government’s inquiry was complete.
Since the privatization was carried out in violation of both the language and the spirit of the Privatization and Commercialization Act, it is documented that the cancellation of the privatization was not contested in any court.
In response to the increasing push for the privatization of the country’s refineries, the Alliance on Surviving COVID and Beyond (ASCAB) officially urges NUPENG and PENGASSAN to step up their long-standing fight.
The statement went on to say, “Those who are waiting for the refineries to be privatized in a way that is contrary to the interests of the country should be encouraged to establish their own refineries, such as the Dangote Group.”
During his administration, former President Obasanjo disclosed how the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (now known as the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited) rejected an offer of $750 million from Aliko Dangote to run the refineries in Port Harcourt, Warri, and Kaduna in 2007.
Obasanjo stated in an exclusive interview with Channels Television on Thursday that the NNPC rejected Dangote’s proposal despite knowing it couldn’t run the country’s refineries efficiently.
After Shell rejected Obasanjo’s offer to oversee the three refineries due to corruption, poor maintenance, low production output, and two other factors, Obasanjo claimed that Dangote made his offer.
“After that, Aliko assembled a team and they paid $750 million to participate in PPP (Public–Private Partnership) in order to run the refineries,” the former president stated.
“After my successor, Yar’Adua, returned their money, I went to him and explained the situation. He noted that NNPC had stated that they could operate the refineries and that they wanted them. “But you know they can’t run it,” I said.
