Former National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Prince Uche Secondus, has thrown his weight behind Dangote Refinery in its determination to checkmate saboteurs trying to undermine the over $19billion refinery through orchestrated claim by the regulators that it is producing substandard products and operating at low capacity.
The regulators’ claims met with resistance by the Chairman/ CEO of the Dangote Group, Alh Aliko Dangote, who alleged at a world press conference that there was a deliberate attempt to undermine the refinery so that Nigeria would continue to patronize a blending plant in Malta said to belong to Oando.
Oando is alleged to be owned and headed by the Tinubu family as shareholders.
The alleged fuel blending facility in Malta, a Southern European country, may ensure continuous saturation of the local market with imported oil and break Dangote’s planned market monopoly of petroleum products, according to the allegations.
But the Oil driller Oando Plc has since debunked the allegations that it holds shares in an oil storage and blending facility domiciled in the Southern European country of Malta.
The oil firm also refuted claims that it is a party to any action leading to importation of substandard petroleum products into the country.
Moreover, the energy company refuted the allegations that its principals are board members of Raz Hansir Oil Terminal Limited, an energy firm.
“We wish to refute such claims and attest that neither Oando PLC nor its Executives have ever held shares, investments, or interests in the fictitious Maltese company.
“As part of a comprehensive investigation into the basis of the false claims, we conducted a search of the Malta Business Registry, the official repository for all registered entities past and current within the country. Our search yielded no results for a company bearing that name,” Oando had said in a recent statement, signed by the Company Secretary, Ayotola Jagun.
However, reacting to the Dangote’s cries that some people with vested self – driven interests were trying to undermine his refinery from functioning, Prince Secondus in a statement made available to newsmen by his Media Adviser, Ike Abonyi in Abuja, said he is not against healthy competition, but believes that local plants must be accorded priority if the country must move away from importation and be self-sufficient in local production.
According to the statement, Secondus believed that the refining market is wide enough to accommodate new investors and competition.
He noted that Dangote, for now, has been patriotic enough to invest over $19billion to build a world-class refinery that will cater to Nigeria’s domestic demands.
He therefore applauded the decision by the Federal Government to provide crude to the refinery at local rates, saying it’s a welcome development and speaks volumes of an end in sight to the perennial petroleum products scarcity in the country.
Secondus therefore urged the Federal Government to fish out the culprits and take decisive action against those identified as “saboteurs of one of our national prides.”
The former PDP chairman urged Dangote not to be discouraged by the antics of the petroleum products regulators, who are hellbent on undermining local production to further their pecuniary interests.
Secondus rather urged Dangote “to rededicate himself to national service and development.”
