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Real reason Nigerian refineries are down —Expert

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Nigerian entrepreneur and founder of So Fresh, Olagoke Balogun, has criticised the handling of local refineries within the country, stating that the Nigerian government is inadequate to ever operate the refineries well.

Balogun, who worked in the oil and gas industry for 13years before going into entrepreneurship, said on Thursday that the worst decision Nigeria ever made was the reversal of the refineries sale.

The sale had been reversed by former President Musa Yar’Adua, and Balogun said the decision dragged Nigeria back 20 years. He said refinery is a complex operation to run, and Nigeria’s corruption rate makes it impossible to manage appropriately.

He added that the government’s gross incompetence is also a problem for the country to successfully manage its refineries, “Refineries are one of the most complex facilities to run, worked in some home and abroad for 13 years.

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“They are capital, technology and management intensive operations, yet low margin. It’s a precise science. The Nigerian government will never ever be able to run a refinery.

“One of the greatest atrocities ever committed in Nigeria is the reversal of the sale of those refineries by Yaradua, set the country back by another 20 years. Aside from corruption, the Nigerian state is grossly incompetent to run such complex operations even if they wanted to.

“While Nigerians looks for silver bullets to set the country on a path of growth & development, it’s everyday decisions like this that compounds over time to either take us forward or keep us in the reverse gear.

“Our policy formulation & economic choices leaves less to be desired. The painful part of the decisions the current government has taken over the last 5 years is that the real effect may last the next 15 years to correct, before we even talk of moving forward.

“What I think OBJ did in the first 8 years was to correct our course with sound policy and economic choices, unfortunately the next 14 years has been in reverse. Who’s going to set us on a correction path again? 2023 seems to be another 1999 opportunity.” Balogun said in a post on Twitter.

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