Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has blamed his successors, including President Goodluck Jonathan, for being responsible for the rot in the country’s power sector.
Speaking at the first Green Legacy Moment with Chief Olusegun Obasanjo on Leadership and Human Security in Africa in Abeokuta, Ogun State, he said his administration laid the foundation for the little amount of electricity the country now enjoys.
According to him, it was as if successive administrations were waiting for him to fix the power sector. He claimed that after his rule as military head of state between 1976 and 1979, other heads of state failed to do anything in the sector in terms of power generation and distribution, till he returned to power in 1999 as a civilian President.
Lamenting openly at the programme, Obasanjo wondered why it was difficult for President Umaru Yar’Adua, whom he handed over power to, could not record any significant achievement in the sector till he died in office.
Obasanjo, who recently registered for his PhD programme at the National Open University (NOUN), seemed outraged when he discussed the present level of power generation and distribution in Nigeria, saying the situation has deteriorated, since President Goodluck Jonathan took over in May 2010.
He admitted that a major cause of the problems facing the country is lack of political will on the part of the country’s leaders; he also warned that electricity should not be privatised to friends.
His words: “When I was military head of state, I developed the Jebba Dam. I developed Shiroro Dam, I started Egbin. Shagari came and completed Egbin and commissioned Jebba and Shiroro.
“Between Shagari in 1983, until I came back in 1999, there was no single dime invested in power generation. If anything, the ones that were there were allowed to go down.”
He said for Nigeria to overcome this challenge, it must add not less than 2,000 mega watts annually to its electricity generation capacity.
The outburst of the ex-President at a time like this, feigning ignorance regarding the complications in power generation leaves much to be desired.
Yar’Adua’s government sponsored a probe on the power sector during the Obasanjo years, challenging him for having squandered $ 13 billion on the project without meaningful results.
In the reports presented before the House of Representatives in 2009, it was later established that it was actually about $ 3.08 billion that was expended by the Obasanjo government on power generation.
It would also be recalled that the then Minister of Power, the late Bola Ige, promised Nigerians that the challenges over power supply would expire within six months of his assumption of duty. At the end of the day, he could not deliver on his promise.
Obasanjo, in his recent reaction, has blamed Ige for ‘his’ failed promises, which he admitted were riddled with corruption, and by implication has exonerated himself from the decision to phase out darkness in six months; the then President also found the power deficit difficult to overcome in his eight years in office.
“If you will remember, when I came back in 1999, my first Minister of Power was late Bola Ige. I won’t say Bola didn’t know what he was doing and he said publicly that he would fix the power problems in six months.
“After one year, Bola with his capacity couldn’t fathom what was wrong with power. It was riddled with corruption. Then we had no money, people have forgotten that in 1999/2000, the price of crude oil was $ 9 per barrel. So, I wanted the oil companies, and they wouldn’t go along,” he said.
Obasanjo further expressed his disappointment in Yar’Adua because, according to him, he failed to understand what to do at the right time.
He said, “When we started having money, we started the National Integrated Power Project. When we said the money we had should be invested in power, my successor didn’t understand, he stopped it.
“If for almost 20 years we did not achieve anything in power generation, then we may not be able to get it again.”
Expressing doubts and comparing Nigeria with other nations of the world, the three-time head of state enumerated the dangers ahead.
“Let me give you an example: the population of South Africa is 55 million and they generate 45,000 megawatts. Our population today is about 180 million people and we cannot generate 4,000 megawatts. And South Africa is an industrialising country and not an industrialised nation.
“For us to say that we are an industrialising country, we must be generating much more than what South Africa is generating, say 100,000 mega watts. What year will Nigeria get there, if we are adding 2,000 mega watts each year? For us to get to 100,000 mega watts, I leave the mathematics to you. It sounds very discouraging but that is the reality,” he said.
In his reaction to the former President’s pronouncements, the chairman of the Niger Delta Nationalities Forum, Manijar Seigha, said Obasanjo’s effort lacked strategic planning.
“When OBJ (Obasanjo) came in 1999, he was anxious to fix the poor power situation and he truly meant it. He invited Chief Bola Ige, his friend, to handle it. Ige, in turn, promised to fix electricity in six months. However, a year after the promise, there were still major challenges with power.
“By the end of OBJ’s eight-year tenure, power was still not available as promised. It was not because he was unwilling but because the process lacked strategic planning. Money was released but the result was negative.
“Yar’Adua came in, used two years to ascertain why the huge amounts spent could not fix the power problem. Now Jonathan is here and, as usual, we are rushing him. Power generation and distribution in a country like ours that is already lagging behind is a huge technical project that requires clinical and strategic planning.
“It will require about $ 32 billion to get us uninterrupted, 24-hour power supply and this will also take not less than 18 months to accomplish,” he said.
In his contributions to the issue, pubic commentator, Ras Ike Obineche, said despite his ‘rascality’, Obasanjo could not save Nigeria from corruption.
Obineche said, “Perhaps another area where the ex-President’s rascality has failed to help Nigeria is in the fight against corruption. All through the first four years of his Presidency, Nigeria was serially listed as either the most corrupt or second most corrupt country on earth.
“The agencies established by the President to fight corruption, notably the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), have been waging an unenviable war against the malaise. Not only do they have to operate in a system where corruption has become endemic, they had the difficult task of proving to a sceptical public that they were not Obasanjo’s private army, waging war against his political opponents.
“The former President’s comportment has not helped their cause. Some of his men who have been fingered as corrupt or who due to their own indiscretion have exposed themselves as corrupt men have not been touched, while those who disagreed with Obasanjo on political grounds were often hounded and hunted down.
“Take, for instance, the case of Chief Tony Anenih, Obasanjo’s trusted minister (1999 to 2003) and campaign manager during the 2003 elections. There are allegations that the man corruptly enriched himself from the N300 billion allocated to his ministry for repair of federal roads while he was Minister of Works.
“Despite persistent calls from the Presidents party men and even state governors, none of the anti-corruption agencies has invited the powerful politician for questioning.”
