Obasanjo has accused former President Yar'adua for sacrificing public interest for private individuals in cancelling the sale.
Former Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo has revealed that his predecessor, late Umaru Yar’adua made a big mistake by stopping the sale of the Kaduna and Port Harcourt refineries to billionaire, Aliko Dangote.
Obasanjo also said that Yar’adua had sacrificed public interest for private individuals in cancelling the sale.
The former President made the comments during an interview with Channels TV.
Obasanjo said:
“Eventually Aliko Dangote led a group that paid $750m for the privatisation of two of the refineries – 51 per cent privatisation – and my successor (Yar’Adua) came (in), he turned it down. In fact, he paid back the money because they (investors) had paid the money.”
“And I went to him; I said ‘look, do you know…? And he said well, he did it because of pressure. I said ‘pressure?’, so to you what matters is pressure, not what is in the best interest of Nigerians. I said, but you know it will not work. Then I said in 10 years, if you continue, you would have spent two times the amount that these people had paid and it still would not work. And that is what happened.”
“Today those two refineries, you can never make them work. And if we are going to sell them, we would be lucky to get $250m out of them because they have become a huge scrap. Now, why shouldn’t I explain that (in my book)?”
Dangote is currently constructing his own refinery in the Lekki Free Trade Zone in Lagos State.