We Will Demand Your Removal if Port Harcourt Refinery Fails to Resume Operations – PETROAN Slams Ojular

Bayo Ojulari, the chief executive officer (GCEO) of Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, has come under fire from the Petroleum Products Retail Outlets Owners Association of Nigeria (PETROAN) for remarks he made regarding the Port Harcourt refinery.

According to reports, Ojulari had previously asserted that the Port Harcourt plant was suffering enormous losses, which resulted in the shutdown of the establishment.

Ojulari said that the Dangote refinery gave Nigerians a “breathing space” when state-owned refineries were shut down, and he urged them to thank God for it.

But in a statement released on Wednesday, Joseph Obele, PETROAN’s national public relations officer (PRO), urged the NNPC CEO to refrain from praising the Dangote refinery based on the state-owned asset’s failure.

He disagreed with Ojulari’s claim that Nigerians should be “thankful” only for the Dangote refinery’s success.

He acknowledged the privately owned refinery’s strategic significance and admirable accomplishment, but stated that private investment cannot take the place of the government’s constitutional and financial duty to effectively manage public assets.

The private investment in Dangote Refinery is motivated by efficiency and profit. Nigerians, however, have access to national assets through NNPC. “One cannot be used as a justification for the other’s failure,” Obele stated.

He said that NNPC leadership’s frequent public confessions of ineptitude might damage Nigeria’s energy security framework, erode investor confidence, and undo years of policy efforts to support local refining, price stability, and job development.

Obele reminded the NNPC GCEO that his role was to address issues, “not to retreat behind the success of a private refinery.”

The claim that there is no hurry to restart the Port Harcourt Refinery because Dangote is now supplying Nigeria’s fuel needs is what he called “most worrisome.”

According to Obele, “such a statement is irksome, unacceptable, and indicative of leadership that is not solution-centric.”

Nigeria cannot continue to normalize waste, institutional failure, and the retrospective rationalization of bad choices, according to the PETROAN PRO.

He emphasized that acknowledging failure is only significant if it is accompanied by accountability, improvements, and a convincing strategy to stop it from happening again.

Obele added that in order “to demand the removal of the NNPC GCEO should the Port Harcourt Refinery fail to resume operations on or before 1 March 2026,” he will work with civil society organizations and other pertinent parties to investigate legal possibilities.

Given the enormous amounts already spent on rehabilitation, he cautioned that if the shutdown is prolonged, it may result in rust, corrosion, and equipment failure, which would ultimately make the entire overhaul effort pointless if nothing is done immediately.