A public affairs analyst, Mustapha Mohammed, has urged the Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Downstream Petroleum, Ikenga Ugochinyere, to allow the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) to fix the Port Harcourt and other state-owned refineries.
Mohammed made the call in a statement on Sunday.
Recall that Ugochinyere had vowed to invoke parliamentary powers to demand answers from the Chief Executive Officer of NNPCL, Bashir Bayo Ojulari, and the Executive Vice President over details concerning the rehabilitation of the state-owned refineries.
Reacting, Mohammed urged the lawmaker to stop politicising the rehabilitation of the country’s refineries.
“Ugochinyere and his sponsors should allow the refineries to be fixed. The NNPCL is executing a deliberate Federal Government policy to revive the refineries, and there has been no breach of any legislation by the National Assembly or any of its committees.
“What is required at this point is to allow the process to work rather than creating unnecessary controversy around an intervention that is already being implemented.”
He added that “accusing the NNPCL of withholding information on the rehabilitation of Nigeria’s refineries is a backend tactic by the same agents using cheap gimmicks to create the impression that the government is not doing anything.”
Mohammed said the government’s refinery rehabilitation programme should be judged by its progress and eventual outcomes rather than political rhetoric.
