Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has revealed how the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, declined a $750 million offer by billionaire business tycoon Aliko Dangote to manage the Port Harcourt and Kaduna refineries in 2007.

 

Obasanjo made this revelation during an exclusive interview with Channels Television.

 

According to the former president, the NNPC was aware that it lacked the capacity to run the national refineries but still rejected Dangote’s offer.

 

“Aliko got a team together, and they paid $750 million to take part in a PPP (Public–Private Partnership) to run the refineries.

 

“My successor refunded their money, and I went to him and explained what had transpired.

 

“They wanted the refineries, and they could run them. I said, ‘But you know they cannot run it,’” Obasanjo said.

 

Obasanjo served as Nigeria’s democratically elected president from May 1999 to May 2007.

 

He was also Nigeria’s military Head of State from February 1976 to October 1979.