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Thu, Mar

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In what appears to be a reconsideration of an earlier held opinion, former President Olusegun Obasanjo has commended President Muhammadu Buhari for making remarkable progress in areas where successive administrations including his own failed. Obasanjo who stated this at the weekend while performing the groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of Azikel Refinery,

the first private modular refinery in the oil and gas-rich Niger Delta region, described as “commendable” the Buhari administration’s decision to award operational licenses to 22 firms for the construction of modular refineries in the country. He explained that the effort by the current administration would end the perennial cases of fuel scarcity in the country while also increasing the nation's foreign reserves that would have been wasted on importation of refined petroleum products.


He noted that 18 of such licences were approved under his administration stressing that none of them was able to actualise it, unlike the present administration. According to him;


“I have been told that President Buhari and his government gave 22 licences and that Azikel Petroleum is the only license out of the 22 that is really actualised. Before then, we gave 18 and not one was actialised. They gave all manner of excuses, including insecurity and oil prices.

 

But those excuses they gave are still there. But they were not genuine entrepreneurs. They were after collecting licences to get crude oil. And that is why in an occasion like this, we should pay special tribute to people like Eruani.


I join you all in thanking President Buhari for giving four licences more than we gave. And he (Buhari) is lucky that he has a man like Eruani to be the only one to actualise.”


Recall that the former President had released a statement recently, calling on President Buhari not to seek reelection in 2019. He accused the president of allegedly failing in some areas including the economy.


His statement has however elicited mixed reactions with most commentators accusing him of lacking the moral right to issue such statement. They maintained that Obasanjo who had attempted to amend the constitution in order to enjoy third term should not advise a sitting president against seeking second term as recommended by the constitution.

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