Nigeria’s refineries located in Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna have been comatose for decades as funds earmarked for their routine turnaround maintenance and repairs were diverted by successive corrupt officials in the Nigerian National Petroleum Company and Ministry of Petroleum Resources.
Despite being Africa’s largest crude producer, Nigeria has depended on fuel imports to meet local demand because of the poor state of the state-run refineries.
But Falae, in an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Thursday, reasoned that government should repair and sell the refineries to those who can run them.
“Crude oil is our national endowment and should be sold at the cost of production plus little margin.
“My belief is that Nigeria’s problem with fuel and its price will be substantially resolved when we are able to repair and recommission our refineries and sell to companies that know how to run refineries,” the elder statesman said.
The former minister said the president does not have to be the minister of petroleum.
He added: “If we repair the refineries and sell them to those who can manage refineries. And then, they will use those refineries to refine Nigerian crude oil and sell them to those of us here in Nigeria. That reduces the influence of the dollar exchange rate substantially.
“I am almost certain that the day we do that, the price of fuel will come down almost substantially. I do not doubt that.”
The elder statesman also expressed concern about the challenges facing the manufacturing sector, regreting that the manufacturing sector is almost dead in Nigeria.
“The manufacturing sector is almost dead in Nigeria… once power is inadequate, manufacturing will suffer.
“Power is the most important thing affecting manufacturing,” he added.
Falae also posited that Nigeria should not be buying crude oil at the international market price.
“My position is that crude oil is a natural endowment of Nigeria. God himself has given it to us to help us to stimulate development,” the monarch said on the current affairs show. “So, we should consume it at the cost of production plus a reasonable profit margin for the producers; not at the international market price.”