The former minister, however, said the reports were misleading with sensational headlines the media outlets titled.

Kachikwu explained that he only expressed his wish to have “achieved the Refinery upgrade for Nigerians and that I tried but at the end of the day NNPC owns the refineries and led the negotiations for Private Sector support funding and once they could not obtain the right funding terms there was nothing I could do.”

He stated that “the President is passionate about fixing the refineries and in this term, this will be a priority item and handled at a ministerial level.”