President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s latest declaration that the Federal government owned Refinery needs a “RESET” is difficult to see as anything other than an attempt to rename failure rather than confront it.
For years, Nigerians were told that billions of dollars were being spent rehabilitating the country’s government-owned refineries. Nigerians were repeatedly given assurances that the Port Harcourt Refinery, Warri refinery and Kaduna refinery have been revived and would return to production. We were even treated to triumphant claims that refined petroleum products from Port Harcourt refinery were being exported to the United Arab Emirates.
Now, after all the money spent, all the ceremonies, all the official announcements and all the propaganda about a functioning refinery, we are being told that it needs a “RESET.”
A reset?
What exactly is being reset, the refinery, or the government’s story?
This is not a computer whose operating system simply needs rebooting. This is a national refinery into which enormous public resources have reportedly been poured under successive administrations, including the Tinubu administration. If the rehabilitation was genuinely successful, why does the facility require another dramatic intervention before it can operate as Nigerians were promised?
The most insulting part is not merely that the refinery is struggling. Governments can encounter technical difficulties. Projects can suffer setbacks. Equipment can fail. What Nigerians deserve, however, is honesty.
Instead, the public has been subjected to a familiar cycle: announce rehabilitation, spend billions, stage commissioning ceremonies, proclaim success, generate celebratory headlines, and when reality refuses to cooperate, introduce a new word.
Today, that word is “RESET.”
It is political deodorant for an embarrassing failure.
“Reset” makes incompetence sound technical. It makes a broken promise sound like a software update. It allows those responsible to avoid the uncomfortable question: What happened to the billions already spent, and why did the government tell Nigerians the refinery was working if it was not actually working sustainably?
If the refinery was producing commercially viable quantities, show Nigerians the production figures. Show the audited expenditure. Show the volumes refined, the products produced, the revenues generated and the destinations of those products. If there were exports to the UAE, where are the verifiable records?
Nigerians should not be expected to applaud another announcement simply because the government has found a cleverer word for another attempt.
The Tinubu administration cannot keep moving the goalposts and calling the movement a “reset.” Nigerians were promised revival. Then they were told the refinery was operational. Now they are being told it needs a reset.
At some point, the government has to stop resetting the narrative and start accepting responsibility.
A refinery does not become functional because a president declares it functional. And a failed rehabilitation does not become a success because the government gives the next intervention a fashionable name.
If “RESET” means starting again after billions of naira have already been spent, then Nigerians have every right to ask: who failed, who approved the spending, who certified the earlier success, and who is going to account for the money?
Nigeria does not need another public-relations exercise. It needs functioning refineries, transparent accounts and consequences for failure.
The real reset Nigeria needs is not another slogan from the presidency. It is a reset of the culture in which government failure is repeatedly repackaged as government achievement and citizens are expected to forget yesterday’s promises every time a new press statement is issued.
Enough of the propaganda. Enough of the semantics.
If the refinery was working, prove it. If it was not working, admit it. And if billions were wasted on a rehabilitation that failed, tell Nigerians where the money went and who is responsible.
Calling failure a “RESET” does not make it less of a failure. It only makes the excuse more sophisticated. https://www.facebook.com/100013785282908/posts/2577936319342519/?app=fbl
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