Reported by: Oahimire Omone Precious | Edited by: Oravbiere Osayomore Promise.
Former Vice President and African Democratic Congress presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar has launched a blistering attack on President Bola Tinubu, accusing him of political escapism and demanding that he account for the trillions of naira committed to Nigeria's refineries under his own watch. In a statement issued on Sunday, August 16, 2026, by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, Atiku said Tinubu cannot both claim credit for the rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt Refinery in 2024 and now disown the facilities as inherited liabilities after they have been exposed as a monumental failure.
The former vice president cited Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited financial records showing that the combined obligations of the Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna refineries to the national oil company rose from approximately N4.52 trillion at the end of 2023 to N8.67 trillion at the end of 2024 – an increase of about N4.15 trillion in a single year under President Tinubu's administration. Atiku said the numbers tell a story that propaganda cannot erase and that Nigerians deserve answers on what they received in return for the enormous expenditure.
Atiku's statement was triggered by Tinubu's recent comments, in which he told the leadership of the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers that he had accepted responsibility for the assets and liabilities inherited from previous administrations. The former vice president dismissed this as political escapism, pointing out that Tinubu's own government financed the rehabilitation of the refineries, celebrated their supposed return to operation and presented them as evidence of the success of his Renewed Hope Agenda.
"President Tinubu cannot have it both ways. When the cameras were rolling in November 2024, his government told Nigerians that the Port Harcourt refinery was back. NNPC announced that it was operating at 70 per cent capacity and expressly presented it as an achievement under President Tinubu's leadership," Atiku stated. "Now that the celebration has turned into embarrassment, the same administration wants Nigerians to believe that the refineries are merely liabilities inherited from previous governments. Mr President, you claimed the refinery when you thought it was working. You cannot disown it now that the smoke has cleared."
The ADC presidential candidate said the situation had become even more devastating because Tinubu's own NNPC leadership had subsequently admitted that the refineries were operating at a "monumental loss" and that the country was effectively wasting money. He demanded answers to a series of pointed questions: "If the combined obligations of these refineries jumped by more than N4 trillion in 2024 alone, what exactly did Nigerians receive in return? Where did the money go? Where are the products? Where are the savings Nigerians were promised? And where is the refinery your government celebrated before television cameras?"
Atiku argued that the N4 trillion represented far more than a balance-sheet figure, pointing to what it could have funded elsewhere. "Think about what N4 trillion could do for Nigeria. Think about the universities struggling with overcrowded lecture halls, hospitals without modern equipment, roads that have become death traps and communities without electricity or potable water," he said. "Yet trillions accumulate around refineries that the government itself now effectively acknowledges have been haemorrhaging public resources. This is not merely incompetence. It is an unforgivable failure of stewardship."
The former vice president said Tinubu cannot spend three years claiming credit for everything that appears to work and blaming his predecessors for everything that fails. He noted that while Tinubu had repeatedly complained about the assets and liabilities he inherited, Nigerians were now entitled to examine the liability his own administration had become. "The real liability today is a government that consumes trillions without delivering results; a government that celebrates projects before they work and searches for predecessors to blame when they collapse," Atiku declared.
He added that the contradiction between the government's triumphant refinery announcements in 2024 and its subsequent admissions provided a fitting metaphor for Tinubu's presidency. "President Tinubu's scorecard after more than three years is increasingly a story of fire and smoke — enormous expenditure, extravagant announcements and very little Nigerians can hold in their hands. Nigeria cannot afford another four years of paying for failure."
Atiku's demand for accountability comes as Nigerians continue to pay painfully high prices for petrol while enormous public resources have been tied up in facilities that have failed to deliver sustainable refining capacity. The refinery fiasco, he said, was particularly painful because it symbolised a broader pattern of governance failure under the Tinubu administration. "You cannot spend three years claiming credit for everything that appears to work and blaming your predecessors for everything that fails. Leadership does not work that way," he concluded.
The Presidency had not issued an immediate response to Atiku's allegations at the time of filing this report. However, the former vice president's remarks have reignited the debate over the management of Nigeria's state-owned refineries and the accountability of the Tinubu administration for the billions of naira committed to their rehabilitation.
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