The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has called for a comprehensive audit of Nigeria’s refineries, following emerging reports that successive administrations may have spent close to $18 billion on their rehabilitation without achieving any tangible results.
In a press statement released by Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, the party’s national publicity secretary and spokesperson for the coalition, the ADC raised concerns about the Tinubu administration’s transparency. The party questioned the government’s recent announcement of full privatisation of the refineries, especially after spending over $2.8 billion on them and previously claiming they were functional.
Full ADC statement below:
The ADC said it views with “deep concern the recent confirmation by the Tinubu administration and the leadership of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL)” that the federal government plans to privatise state-owned refineries. The party noted this announcement comes just months after officials claimed that the Port Harcourt and Warri refineries had resumed partial operations—raising serious issues about consistency and credibility.
“It would be recalled that the APC government recently announced that the refineries were already working,” the ADC stated. “It is therefore curious that the same government, having spent such humongous amounts on the refineries, is now planning to sell them off.”
Expressing concern over continuous wasteful spending in the name of “turnaround maintenance,” the party added that the scheme seems to benefit only those profiting from it. ADC also criticized the government’s apparent rush to sell the assets “without giving full consideration to alternative options and without consultations with critical stakeholders.”
The statement warned that “selling off the refineries under the prevailing circumstances is indeed conducive for all sorts of criminal dealings,” possibly involving the devaluation and sale of national assets to cronies.
ADC, therefore, demanded a “full and independent audit—financial, technical, and structural—before any sale is contemplated or privatisation is considered.”
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It further accused successive APC administrations of spending over $18 billion on “so-called rehabilitation” with nothing to show for it. The current administration, the party claimed, had added another $2.8 billion to the tally, yet there’s been “no verifiable increase in refining capacity, no observable cost efficiency, and no fuel security benefit accruing to the Nigerian people.”
Referring to Alhaji Aliko Dangote’s public remarks, the ADC noted that “even Africa’s foremost industrialist” expressed doubts about the feasibility of reviving the government-run refineries. According to the ADC, “The infrastructure is obsolete, the operations are hollowed out, and the entire value chain has become a black hole for public funds.”
The party questioned: “So again, we must ask: what exactly is being sold, and why now?”
It argued that if privatisation had always been the goal, then the years of investment were either wasteful or fraudulent. “Government cannot, in good conscience, expend public funds on assets under the guise of rehabilitation, only to turn around and offer them for sale—without accountability on the investments already made and without any public reckoning.”
“In other climes, those responsible for such transactions would have faced judgments,” the party noted.
The ADC insisted that no discussions on privatisation should proceed without a “comprehensive forensic audit of all funds allocated to refinery rehabilitation from 2010 to date.” This should include a third-party technical assessment to determine the actual condition and viability of the assets.
The audit results, the statement stressed, “must be presented in full to the public through a legislative hearing, with civil society, energy economists, and anti-corruption agencies present.”
“Until then, any attempt to sell these refineries must be considered not just illegitimate, but criminal.”
Concluding, the ADC emphasized that the issue at hand goes beyond public spending—it touches on national integrity. “If this government truly believes in reform, then it must begin with the truth. And if it claims to be accountable, then it must submit itself to scrutiny.”
“What we are witnessing is not a policy decision. It is a cover-up. And the ADC will not stand by while national assets are quietly auctioned to cronies and to mask years of systemic failure.”
Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi
Interim National Publicity Secretary
African Democratic Congress (ADC)
