JTF destroyes two illegal refineries (...and private owners are yet to build one?)

Joint Task Force in the Niger Delta says it has destroyed two illegal oil refineries in Bayelsa State.

Spokesman for JTF, Lt. Col. Onyema Nwachukwu,  said troops of 5 Battalion of the outfit deployed in Sector 2 area in the Niger Delta impounded two barges laden with illegally sourced crude oil along the Kasabobo creek.

Nwachukwu said the feat was achieved after a weeklong intensive anti-oil theft patrol targeted at sanitising the creeks and waterways of Southern Ijaw Local Government Area of Bayelsa.

So the Federal Government agrees that Nigeria has illegal refineries, why then is it taking so long for LEGAL refineries to be built. These guys built this refineries from practical nothing and yet with all the billions of Naira, private investors are yet to build even one. 

Politics, politics, politics. Is the Government truly serious about private refinery ownership? Am beginning to feel otherwise.

Of course I am not in support of anything illegal but I also remember reading during the Biafran War, 6 July 1967 – 15 January 1970, that the Ibo's also built refineries. So if the Government is indeed willing this is not only possible but also less complicated as we have been made to believe.

Every now and then, we hear of illegal refineries, what are these people refining, water?

Am so happy that Dangote has finally started his own, at least we are sure one will soon be up and running. The Federal Government should also sell off the other ones and allow total private ownership. That arrangement seems to be paying us more. See the telecoms industry.