The Corporation said the former President concentrated the oil sector in the hands of a few oligarchies which they manipulated to enrich themselves.

The NNPC also came down hard on President Obasanjo’s privatization programme, saying the process was driven from outside the corporation and in the process excluded competent hands who would have availed the government of their expertise.

The Group Managing Director (GMD) of the NNPC, Alhaji Lawal Abubakar Yar’Adua who made this known after a tour of the Kaduna Refining and Petro- Chemical Company (KRPC) said that Obasanjo’s administration did not allow NNPC staff to contribute to the process that ensured the facilitation of selling the companies to potential buyers as if the staff were bereft of ideas.
The KRPC started refining petroleum productions on March 14, this year after about three years of closure.

The GMD was represented on the occasion by the Group Executive Director, Refinery and Petrochemicals, Mr Anthony Azubuke
“I want Nigerians to realize that the downstream sector of the petroleum industry is better when majority of Nigerians participate than when a few oligarchies seized the sector and manipulated it to whatever they wanted to do in order to become billionaires.

“You are all aware that prior to this regime, the privatization process was essentially driven from outside the NNPC as if NNPC had nothing to contribute towards ensuring that the facilities that will become presentable for potential people who want to participate.
“But thanks to the current regime, the process is significantly different. We have to first of all ensure that people who want to partner with us are seen to run in that process…” he said.
The GMD said that contract would be awarded during the next dry season for the Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) as it cannot be done during the rainy season.

He, however, stressed that the cost of the TAM would be significantly reduced because of the major work done to rehabilitate the company for it to start production once again.
According to him, the KRPC now produces about 1.8 million litres of diesel, 1.3million litres of kerosene and 1.4million litres of petrol daily at its present 60 per cent production level even as efforts were being made to get to between 75 per cent and 80 per cent production level soon.
He said that since the completion of repairs along the crude oil pipelines that were damaged, the Warri Refinery and Petrochemical Company had also started production just as the KRPC had started receiving crude from Warri.

On the significance of resumption of production of petroleum products at KRPC, he said that textile and other agro-allied companies which closed shops because of lack of products like black oil would soon begin production.
“This is a happy day for the northern region as you are all aware that the refinery is not just there to produce PMS (petrol) and kerosene. It is a critical and strategic infrastructure that produce more than PMS and kerosene because it produces other products like black oil that drives the economic activities of this country.

“We will in a short while begin to see the resuscitation of various industries that have since shut down, particularly textile and agro-allied industries,” he added.
Earlier in his welcome address, the Managing Director of KRPC, Mr Mojeed Olayinka Agoro, had said that lack of nitrogen for preservation took its toll on the various plants.
Agoro also said that the KRPC recruited retired but experienced staff for the start up of the company and urged the government to approve more funds for the repair “of lockers and furniture in various control rooms to raise them to a level befitting our status as the pride of the nation.”