Group Hails Tinubu, Kyari For Resuscitating Port Harcourt Refinery
By Najib Sani, Gombe
The North East Cooperative Stakeholders Forum has lauded President Bola Tinubu and the Managing Director of the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited, (NNPCL)i Mele Kyari for ‘resuscitating’ the moribund Port Harcourt in Rivers State.
Chairman of the Forum, Barrister Abdullahi Jalo made the commendation while addressing journalists in Gombe.
He said Kyari’s foresight to revive and revamp the refinery is a good step towards addressing the nation’s problem in the oil and gas sector.
Jalo who is a former Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) said reliable sources have confirmed the functionality of the refinery to him opining that with it, scarcity of petroleum products will soon be a bygone issue in the nation.
According to him, the federal government-owned refinery will not only boost oil availability but will help in bringing down the price of the commodity and trigger competition with other private refineries, thereby making the price of fuel competitive and advantageous to buyers.
Jalo, however, berated former President Olusegun Obasanjo for criticising the refinery and “describing it as a dead entity” alleging that the former Nigerian leader was denigrating the refinery because of his political animosity with the current President.
The forum also advised the NNPCL boss to equally expedite action to ensure the completion of Kolmani oil exploration in Gombe and Bauchi states in the north-eastern part of the country where he hails from.
