The Governor of Nasarawa, Abdullahi Sule, has retracted his statement made during a recent interview with Channels Television’s programme Sunrise Daily. During the interview, the Governor criticised the allocation of $19 billion by President Muhammadu Buhari for refineries maintenance.
Sule had initially criticised the former administrations for deciding to fix multiple refineries all at once, instead of fixing only one. Despite the government owning three refineries in Kaduna, Port Harcourt (Rivers) and Warri (Delta), none of them has been functional at full capacity.
He further stated that the funds expended to fix the three refineries, which were humongous, were equivalent to the same amount Aliko Dangote used to build a new refinery.
However, the Governor, through his Chief Press Secretary, Ibrahim Addra, later recanted, stating that he did not intend to criticise the current administration. He claimed that he only commented on subsidy for petroleum products and discussed “systemic problems that have hindered the optimal functioning of refineries.”
According to the statement, Sule, who has decades of experience in the oil and gas sector, was disconcerted by the misinterpretation of some parts of the interview as they relate to the former President. The statement concludes by clarifying that the governor was not blaming the former president for the problems of the nation’s refineries.
