By Jane Okafor, Abuja
A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Osita Okechukwu, on Sunday, expressed concern that ‘cabals’ in the nation’s oil sector don’t want Dangote Refinery to provide relief to Nigerians.
Okechukwu said the face – off between Dangote and various labour unions in the oil sector is a part of conspiracy by the cabals to stymie the Dangote private refinery efforts to bring relief to Nigerians in the oil value chain.
Dangote Refinery and labour unions in the sector, including NUPENG, PENGASSAN, DAPMAN, IPMAN and informal actors are embroiled in a face -off over the reluctance of the former to allow unionism in the organisation, prompting the Department of State Service (DSS) to step in and broker a truce between both parties.
However, speaking with newsmen in Abuja, the former Director General of Voice of Nigeria, VON, wondered why the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Plc (NNPCL) which mismanaged the country’s four refineries or the NUPENG that frustrated every move to privatize them should be conspiring to stop Dangote under the pretext of fighting monopoly in the oil sector.
Okechukwu lamented that rather than commend Dangote for the reduction of local prices, foreign exchange savings from stopping importation of refined PMS and other derivatives and in addition his exportation of refined products, the NNPCL and co-conspirators have elected to be chasing the yesterday they had lost.
He argued that the conspiracy is unnecessary, and advised that the best “valid option left to stop Dangote monopoly is for the NNPCL to revive the four refineries which had gulped over $10 million for rehabilitation, as competition cannot be in vacuum.
“One is at a loss how NNPCL that woefully failed to neither manage nor repair our four refineries and regrettably denied Nigerians the golden opportunity to own 20% in the Dangote Refinery is simulating crisis?
“Or the NUPENG and Co, that participated in mangling the refineries and had obstructed their privatisation are today conspiring against Dangote?
“For me what they are doing is mere sabotage and conspiracy against Nigerians; for the cardinal question is could there had been need for the Dangote 7th global largest refinery, if our four refineries were working?”
