Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has recounted how the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) rejected a $750m offer by billionaire business tycoon Aliko Dangote to manage the Port Harcourt & Kaduna refineries back in 2007.

Obasanjo stated this during an exclusive interview with Television.

He said the NNPC, now rebranded as the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), knew that it lacked the capacity to run the national refineries yet rejected Dangote’s offer.

Obasanjo said, “Aliko got a team together and they paid $750m to take part in PPP (Public–Private Partnership) in running the refineries. My successor refunded their money and I went to my successor and told him what transpired. He said NNPC said they wanted the refineries and they can run it. I now said but you know they cannot run it.”

Obasanjo was Nigeria’s democratically elected President between May 1999 and May 2007. He was Nigeria’s military head of state between February 1976 and October 1979.