Rather than view Tuesday’s signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Nigeria and Niger Republic for the building of a new refinery as a boost in the country’s refining capacity, stakeholders and civil society groups view it as an incredibly parochial move aimed at satisfying sectional interest.

In fact, some experts are calling for the immediate cessation of the Federal Government’s involvement in the project, insisting that it was unreasonable for a country, which has failed to optimise the production capacity of four existing refineries, to enter into a new MoU for a new plant, instead of fixing the comatose ones.

It would be recalled that President Muhammadu Buhari, and his Nigerien counterpart, Mahamadou Issoufou, signed the document for the proposed facility, which is expected to come on stream between two to three years, and produce 150, 000 barrels per day (bpd).

Source: The Guardian