The Senate on Thursday mandated its Committee on Downstream Petroleum Sector to carry out a holistic investigation on the turnaround maintenance expenditure and current state of the refineries in the country.

The resolution was a sequel to a Point of Order raised by Sen. Yusuf Yusuf (APC-Taraba Central) during plenary.

It also mandated the committee to convoke a stakeholder’s conference with the aim of finding the best way to revamp ailing refineries in order to favourably compete in the international market within the shortest period of time.

The Senate also urged the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to completely evaluate the dilapidated state of the refineries or total overhauling and rehabilitation to international standard.

This, it said would save the country from further wastage of its meagre resources.

Raising the point of order, Yusuf said that the NNPC had four refineries; two in Port Harcourt, one each in Kaduna and Warri with a combined capacity of 444,000 barrels per day.

He said that the refineries were established to adequately supply and serve the need for the required petrol, gas, Premium Motor Spirit among others for both local consumption and export for maximum profit.

“The country through NNPC has in the past 25 years spent billions of dollars in turnaround maintenance of the refineries; the latest being over 365 million dollars spent between 2013 and 2015 without any meaningful result.

“The Senate is dismayed that the refineries have remained in the moribund state in the last 15 to 20 years.

“It is almost reaching total collapse due to lack of maintenance of the facilities with a poor average capacity utilisation hovering between 15 per cent and 25 per cent per annum.

“ NNPC recently announced as published by the Punch Newspaper of Thursday, Jan.23, a cumulative loss of N123.25 billion in 10 months, Jan. to Oct. 2019 putting the total revenue of the facilities at N68.82 billion.

“While the total expenses incurred was N192.1 billion within the same period.”

Yusuf expressed worry that such wastages as leakages amidst the nation’s tight economy if not addressed would lead the country back to recession.

“Such losses, when averted and combined with the huge expenditures in “under-recovery” on fuel pump price and properly channelled into full rehabilitation and construction of modern refineries would positively impact on the economy.

“It will also save the country from the embarrassment of importation of petroleum products and its ripple effect.”

In his contribution, Sen. Ibikunle Amosun (APC-Ogun) who supported the motion said one of the problems the country was facing was lack of maintenance culture.

He said it was not the first time attention was drawn to the near-collapse of the refineries in the country and urged his colleagues to do a thorough job during the investigation process.

In his remarks, President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan said the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) would be worked upon in February.

The National Security Council presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari has resolved to seek the cooperation of states and local government areas as it seeks new ways out of the burgeoning insecurity crisis in the country. This is even as it has described as unpredictable, the country’s security as the successes made in that regard continues to fluctuate.

The National Security Adviser, Major General Babagana Monguno, who briefed State House correspondents at the end of the meeting, when asked to give a general assessment of the nation’s security situation and judge whether it is stable or critical, said: “The security situation is like a graph, sometimes it goes up, sometimes it comes down and that is why we have to assess it periodically. It will never remain at the same level until we bring the whole situation to an end.

“Sometimes it could escalate, sometimes, it would go down. So there is no perfect answer to that. If I tell you that it has improved and as we walk out of this place, something might happen. There might be an explosion somewhere. These are things that are not predictable; these are things that you cannot actually determine. That is the nature of this type of conflict we are facing.”

Regarding whether the call for service chiefs’ resignation featured on the agenda of the meeting, the NSA said: “The meeting basically made an appraisal of the current security situation in the country and took a look at the possibilities, the opportunities available to government in addressing most of the recent challenges.

“There were discussions and at the end of the day, the most important thing that we came up with is the need to for collaboration both between governmental agencies and the larger Nigerian society because of the type of the insurgencies we are faced with, the complexities, the multiplicity of all kinds of issues.

“There is a need for both parties – governmental agencies on one hand and the larger society (on the other) to collaborate more vigorously.

“There is a need for us to deal with these problems in a comprehensive manner.

“Therefore, the council has decided to take a closer look at issues that will help us not just at the federal level or at the state level, but right down at the local government level. But this is going to be done after due consultations with the relevant stakeholders.”

Asked to give the specifics of the collaboration sought, he said: “The issue of collaboration, it’s not something that I can disclose right now.

“We just concluded the meeting and we have to look at the issues before coming out with whatever decision.

“For collaboration, I want to think that everybody understands the need for a whole government approach in collaborating with the whole society for the approach to achieve a lot.

“This situation requires everybody in the country to work together to deal with these challenges. So, where there are gaps we need to close. That is what I mean by collaboration.”

On the resolution passed by the House of Representatives asking Mr President to relieve the service chiefs of their appointments, Monguna simply said that it was not discussed at the meeting.

In attendance at the meeting were Vice President Yemi Osinbajo; Minister of Defence, Bashir Salihu Magashi; Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, and the National Security Adviser (NSA) Babagana Monguno (retd.).

Others were the Chief of Defense Staff, General Gabriel Olonisakin; Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai; Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Ibok Ekwe Ibas; Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshall Sadique Abubakar; Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu; Director-General of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Ahmed Rafa’i Abubakar; and the Director-General of the Directorate of State Services (DSS) Yusuf Magaji Bichi.