The Nigerian Society of Chemical Engineers (NSChE) has called on the Federal Government to privatise Nigeria's state-owned refineries through a transparent, competitive process that grants majority control to private investors. The society's National President, Engr. Bayo Olarewaju-Alo, made the call at a press conference titled "Nigeria's Moribund Refineries Need New Governance," arguing that further public spending on rehabilitation should be replaced by a new ownership structure that transfers operational control, investment responsibility and execution risks to technically and financially credible private investors.
According to Olarewaju-Alo, repeated attempts to rehabilitate the Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna refineries over more than two decades have failed to deliver reliable and commercially competitive production. He proposed a 22-month timeline for completing the privatisation process, which would include asset assessment, investor prequalification, due diligence, competitive bidding, regulatory approvals and transfer of ownership and operational control.
Under the proposed model, government would retain a minority, non-controlling interest to protect strategic public interests while avoiding responsibility for financing shortfalls or day-to-day operations. Olarewaju-Alo stated that the purpose would be "not simply to sell assets, but to create a governance and investment model that can deliver reliable production, commercial discipline, national value and public accountability." He said Nigeria has spent substantial public resources over more than two decades trying to restore the three refineries, but they have not achieved reliable, sustained or competitive production despite repeated rehabilitation efforts.
The engineer also called for binding investment and production milestones, environmental safeguards, workforce protection, transparent allocation of legacy liabilities and penalties for non-performance as part of any privatisation framework. These conditions would form part of the transparent divestment of majority equity holding to credible private investors with enforceable obligations and professional operational control.