The Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) has blamed the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Oil, Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, for the current crisis ravaging the nation’s oil industry and causing untold hardship on the residents.

The council said Lokpobiri’s lack of capacity and inefficiency was evident in the way agencies under his ministry had continued to mismanage the oil sector and inflicting pains on the people.

The Niger Delta youths insisted that Lokpobiri’s lack of knowledge of the workings of the oil sector was eroding the gains of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda.

The IYC reacted to the latest resumption date of the Port Harcourt Refinery as announced by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) on Monday.

Chief Financial Officer of the NNPCL, Umar Ajiya, at a media briefing in Abuja, said the refinery would now commence operations in September, 2024.

The council in a statement released in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, said the new date, which they noted might not also be feasible, had confirmed their position that under Lokpobiri, nothing good could come out of the oil sector.

The statement was signed by Maobuye Nangi Obu, the IYC Secretary-General; Comrade Miracle Iyaye, National Women Leader; Tamunotonye David Altraide, National Legal Adviser and Comrade Abiye Bob-Manuel, National Deputy Director of Mobilization.

They noted that Lokpobiri’s reputation for inaction clearly raised doubts about his ability to push and implement the needed reforms in the sector to make Nigerians enjoy availability and cost-effective prices of petroleum products.

The IYC officials said that Nigerians were suffering, especially those in rural areas like far-flung communities in the Niger Delta, because of the cost of petrol and keeping Lokpobiri as Minister would worsen the ongoing hardship.

The council therefore called on President Tinubu to reshuffle his cabinet and send Lokpobiri to a ministry that “he can hide his incompetence, else he will continue to derail the Renewed Hope Agenda for the petroleum sector.”

In his replacement, the IYC said: “There are more competent people even from Bayelsa that could have done a better job than him. The man clearly does not understand the workings of that office.

“We have not seen any tangible results since his appointment. The economy of Nigeria depends heavily on the stability and efficiency of our oil sector. But we are seeing the manifestation of incompetence.

“He told Nigerians some time ago that the Port Harcourt refinery will come on stream on or before 25th December 2023, and that didn’t happen. In fact, he went as far as saying that crude has been supplied to the refinery.

“Today, a litre of petrol sell as high as N2500 or more in some Ijaw communities. We say this because we have been traveling around the region as part of our advocacy for peace and unity of our people.

“Lokpobiri’s retroactive actions and sheer incompetence has caused untoward hardship on Nigerians, especially the Ijaws, his kinsmen. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu GCFR, should rejig his cabinet and replace him with a more competent Ijaw man/woman from even Bayelsa where there are abundant of more experienced people.”