Former Vice President of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar, has vehemently demanded the immediate suspension and full public scrutiny of the recently announced "Technical Equity Partnership" between the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd.) and two Chinese entities: Sanjiang Chemical Company Limited and Xingcheng (Fuzhou) Industrial Park Operation and Management Co. Ltd. This partnership aims to restart the Port Harcourt and Warri refineries, but Atiku, through his spokesperson Phrank Shaibu, has denounced the deal as another perilous gamble with Nigeria’s economic future.

Atiku has accused the Tinubu administration of attempting to mortgage critical national assets through opaque arrangements that conspicuously lack technical credibility, transparency, and national accountability. He highlighted the egregious spending of over $2.5 billion on previous, endless refinery rehabilitation scandals, making the NNPC's current request for trust in another secretive experiment particularly "shocking and insulting" to Nigerians.

The former Vice President meticulously scrutinized the technical competence of the involved Chinese firms. He noted that Sanjiang Chemical, while a legitimate petrochemical company, is fundamentally a downstream fine chemicals manufacturer. Its specialization lies in surfactants, ethylene oxide, methanol-to-olefins, and light hydrocarbon processing, which is distinctly different from crude oil refining. Atiku stressed that there is no publicly available evidence globally indicating that Sanjiang has ever built, operated, or managed a full-scale crude oil refinery matching the magnitude and complexity of the Port Harcourt or Warri facilities. He emphasized that processing petrochemical derivatives is not synonymous with running an aging national refinery burdened by decades of operational decay.

Even more alarming, the second Chinese firm, Xingcheng (Fuzhou) Industrial Park Operation and Management Co. Ltd., appears to possess absolutely no verifiable experience in petroleum engineering, refinery operations, or hydrocarbon processing. Corporate and industry records indicate that Xingcheng is essentially an industrial park and infrastructure management company. Atiku likened this situation to entrusting a hospital's intensive care unit to a real estate developer simply because they can construct buildings, underscoring the severe misalignment of expertise.

Atiku further raised concerns about why the Federal Government and NNPC would deliberately bypass globally established refinery engineering and EPC (Engineering, Procurement, and Construction) firms with proven records, only to settle for entities whose backgrounds generate more questions than confidence. He warned that the Tinubu administration risks transforming Nigeria’s refineries into yet another expensive black hole of failed promises, reckless experimentation, and opaque transactions. He declared it "unacceptable" that after years of failed turnaround maintenance scams, billions of dollars squandered, and repeated false assurances about refinery functionality, Nigerians are now expected to celebrate a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed with companies whose core expertise does not align with the technical realities of refinery rehabilitation.

Furthermore, Atiku highlighted troubling financial signals surrounding Sanjiang Chemical, despite its listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Reports indicate declining revenues, shrinking profitability, and significant short-term debt exposure, with the company reportedly operating under liquidity pressure. This financial instability further compounds the concerns regarding the partnership's viability and prudence.

In light of these serious issues, Atiku Abubakar has put forth several demands: the immediate publication of the full terms of the MoU; a transparent technical due diligence report on both firms; a clear disclosure of the financial commitments and liabilities expected of Nigeria; open competitive engagement involving globally reputable refinery operators; and a full legislative investigation into the billions previously spent on refinery rehabilitation without achieving measurable results.

He concluded by asserting that "The era where NNPC signs opaque agreements abroad and expects Nigerians to clap blindly is over." Atiku underscored that national assets are not commodities for bureaucratic experimentation and that the Port Harcourt and Warri refineries are too strategic to be surrendered to uncertainty, obscurity, and corporate guesswork.