The federal government said his sack would not affect Nigeria The federal government has said that the sack of Rex Tillerson by President Donald Trump of US from his position as secretary of state will not affect Nigeria’s relationship with US. Tillerson visited Nigeria and met with President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday, March 12 before he was relieved of his position by President Trump.

Vanguard reports that Geoffrey Onyeama who is the minister of foreign affairs spoke at the end of the federal executive council meeting on Wednesday, March 14 presided over by Professor Yemi Osinbajo. Onyeama said Tillerson was only representing the US in Nigeria and that his removal would not stop whatever agreement was in place.

He said: “Rex Tillerson sack won’t affect (Nigeria) because government is a continuum as we all know. “When he came it was the United States that was speaking and clearly we expect that with every expectation that everything he has said as regards US/Nigeria relations reflects the position of the United States, reflects the position of the president of the United States, so we don’t see any change happening.” Ibe Kachikwu who is the minister of state for petroleum who also spoke after the meeting said modular refineries would help curb illegal refining in the Niger Delta region.

He said: “As a seasoned professional I have given all the guidance that is required to fix the refineries, we came into a situation where we don’t have money to fix the refineries we had to raise the money looking into the PPP model, it has to go through a process. “The technical committee is headed by NNPC, obviously they will submit their report to the board when they complete their work.

So, from a governance and guidance sense, steering point of view, I think that steering is right on track, from a management of the technical aspect of the contracting, that is something we would have to allow NNPC handle, it is not the job of the ministry to superimpose, you got to let them do their work and do it efficiently. “On modular refineries; modular wasn’t supposed to provide a sufficient solution to your product needs, modulars are on the average between 2000 and 5000 maybe 10,000 at most capacity per refinery. Your consumption is about 630,000 barrels per day, that is not the essence of modular, what modular was supposed to do for us is provide work within some of these communities where people are busy doing illegal refining.

“It’s not meant to address the refining product gap we have in the country, we are hoping that those gaps will be covered by a mixture of the three or four refineries that government owns currently, Warri, Port Harcourt and Kaduna egg of course the Dangote refinery of 600 barrels.”