July 08, (THEWILL) – Nollywood actress, Kate Henshaw, has described the inability of Africa’s most populous country, Nigeria, to refine its crude oil as a shame on the part of the government.
In a recent interview with PremiumTimes, Kate said fuel subsidy is originally meant to help alleviate and cushion the effect of hardship on people, but the subsidy regime in Nigeria doesn’t address the problems.
“To me, it’s a complete shame. It’s evil on the part of the government (both past and current) that we cannot boast of refining our product”, she said.
She added that it is worrisome that in 2022, when other countries are progressing, Nigeria is still buying refined petroleum products for domestic use.
“It does not make sense that we do not have a functioning refinery in Nigeria. This is a huge indictment on the president, who also doubles as the Minister of petroleum”, she lamented.
Reacting to the perennial fuel queues, Kate argued that the fuel scarcity situation should not be linked to the Ukraine crisis as some people have suggested, because the war began not long ago.
“Queues have always been in Nigeria for a very long time,” she said, adding that Nigeria does not learn and that its leaders are far removed from the realities on the ground.
“All the money that has been stolen could have been put to good use in making our refineries work,” she said.
She wondered why the nation does not have a functioning refinery despite its petroleum resources.
“It is evil, it is uncontrollable for not having any refinery functioning and you say we should hold on to it,” she questioned.
Kate also decried the use of generators, saying Nigerians had no business having generators in their homes.
She urged the government to fix Nigeria’s moribund refineries, so that the nation could refine its oil resource.
