The Independent Petrol Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) has criticised Minister of State for Petroleum Timipre Sylva for his repeated assurances about the completion date of the Port Harcourt refinery. At a recent seminar for defence correspondents in Abuja, Sylva announced that the refinery would be ready before the end of the second quarter of the year.
Dr. Joseph Obel, IPMAN’s chairman in Rivers State, responded in a statement issued in Port Harbor on Thursday. He said the minister’s promises have become a pattern of unfulfilled pledges, noting that this was not the first time Sylva had made such a guarantee and that each occasion ended in failure. Obel argued that the federal government is not genuinely committed to fixing the refineries and getting them operational, pointing out that Nigeria remains the only “critical” OPEC member without a functional refinery.
The statement highlighted Sylva’s previous commitments: the refinery was promised to commence operations by December 2022, then by the first quarter of 2023, and now by the second quarter of 2023—each deadline missed. Obel claimed the government prefers importing fuel from abroad, where it holds stakes in foreign refineries, and asserted that only a corruption‑free administration could make Nigeria’s refineries functional, ending persistent fuel scarcity and reducing fuel prices to below #100 per litre.
Concluding, the IPMAN chairman said, “We no longer trust them, so they should stop making promises and continue importing from those foreign refineries owned by their business partners. Nigeria is the only critical member of OPEC without a functional refinery; we should be ashamed as a nation.”
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