Obasanjo, Agunloye and the Mambilla power project
Obasanjo and Agunloye
Is electricity in Nigeria ever going to be fixed ? The economy is down because of epileptic electricity. Fix electricity in Nigeria and the economy will pick up all by itself. While President Bola Tinubu and Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN continue to manipulate the exchange rate and while frenetic changes are going on in that bank, we have not as much heard of anything about electricity.
A minister, Adebayo Adelabu has been appointed but it does not yet appear he can do much. With steady electricity supply much of the number crunching at the CBN will not be necessary because increased productivity for domestic and export will cause the naira to gather strength. Tinubu returned recently from India and immediately travelled to America to 'beg', yes, beg for foreign investment. Promises may be secured but they are never going to materialize until electricity is fixed. Who wants an environment where electricity is epileptic? Tinubu pleaded with his Indian audience not to procrastinate but they will not only proscratinate, they might also cancel the projects except electricity is fixed in good time.
Electricity may be uppermost in the agenda of Tinubu as he was said to have wanted Nasir El-Rufai, the former governor of Kaduna state, reputed for top notch performance even in very though environment, to be minister of power. That appointment stalled because as some speculated, Tinubu cannot contain El Rufai in his cabinet or as others said, a cabal around Tinubu schemed El Rufai out. An August, 2023 article by Simon Kolawole, of ThisDay on Mambilla project which was a repeat of a similar one he did in August, 2022, has opened a can of worms on the Mambilla power project. An outburst by former president Olusegun Obasanjo in an interview he granted to Cable news, has added to the worms. Another minister that played a crucial role about 20 years ago in the Mambilla project in response to Simon Kolawole and Olusegun Obasanjo, Olu Agunloye, who served as Minister of Power during the Obasanjo administration, has exposed more worms. The three of them have been talking about what stalled Mambilla project?
Initially, the project was conceived in 1982 as a 3,050-megawatt plant on the Donga River, Taraba State to cost $5.8 billion, but it got off to multiple false starts. When completed, the Mambilla project will increase the installed electricity-generating capacity of the country by 12 per cent, according to The ICIR.
Furthermore, The ICIR reports that the completion of Nigeria’s multibillion naira Mambilla Hydro Project could hit the rocks after a Nigerian company that lost out in the contract bid filed a $400 million lawsuit against the Federal Government
"A lawsuit filed by Leo Adesanya’s Nigerian-owned Sunrise Power and Transmission Company Limited (SPTCL) at the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in Paris, France, requested the court to order President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration to honour its March 2020 agreement.
“The company’s request for an award of $400 million with an interest of 10 per cent was initiated under the ICC’s expedited procedure rules, as specified in the agreements, and should be decided within six months.
“The SPTCL claimed it was awarded the contract to build and operate the 3,050-megawatt hydropower facility in 2003, which was followed by the signing of a General Project Execution Agreement (GPEA) with the government in November 2012.”
However, Simon Kolawole and Olusegun Obasanjo put the worms at the doorstep of Agunloye who was alleged to have signed an unapproved contract to Leo Adesanya to construct the Mambilla power project. But Agunloye who said he ignored Simon Kolawole's first column decided not to ignore the second one; he felt the need to state his part of the story and clear his name. Olu Agunloye is a close friend to Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, a man of great international repute and impeccable integrity who took Agunloye to Federal Road Safety Commission and left him there to continue after Soyinka left. Their stay in the commission was exemplary. Soyinka was instrumental again to Agunloye working with late Bola Ige when Ige was made the minister of power and steel in the Obasanjo administration. Because of importance of power to Nigeria, Soyinka felt Agunloye's dexterity and knowledge will be useful for the miracle expected in the power sector. He recommended him to Ige. In his first press statement, the late Bola Ige assured the nation that he was going to turn ' stone into bread' in the power sector. Four years later, the stone became a rocky mountain.
Along the line, Agunloye himself became the power minister appointed by ex-president Obasanjo. Obasanjo alleged though he told Agunloye he had changed his mind on giving the contract to Adesanya he was surprised when Agunloye took the contract to the cabinet for approval. According to Obasanjo, the cabinet did not approve the contract and despite this, Agunloye, Obasanjo alleged still went ahead to give a contract letter to Adesanya. The contract is now subject to arbitration in courts abroad. Leo Adesanya who had contacted a Chinese firm which had held meetings in China that Obasanjo attended is seeking compensation for breach of contract. Between three presidents after Obasanjo, Umaru Yaradua, Goodluck Jonathan, and Muhammadu Buhari, the contract became a case of award, revocation and reaward and revocation and again award to different persons. This created a 20-year lag with the nation in darkness and the economy in tatters. Umaru Yaradua who succeeded Obasanjo cancelled the contract because of an alleged corruption by some officers in Obasanjo's presidency. Goodluck Jonathan followed suit in the orgy of cancellation and reaward. Muhammadu Buhari, ever a lazy leader, foot dragged for good eight years. Now with Tinubu in the saddle, it does not seem solution will come the way of the project. A cabal has gathered around Tinubu which is allegedly blocking vital people form seeing him, a deliberate strategy to get the desires of the cabal done and not the heart of the president and the good of Nigerians.
Reading through Simon Kolawole, Obasanjo's Cable news interview and Olu Agunloye's response, the reader is taken through a labyrinth of confusion. Who Leo Adesanya is and what are his experiences in the power sector is not revealed but he seems a greenhorn who had family connections with Obasanjo. Obasanjo alleged that by the time he was president, Leo had fled the country otherwise he would have got him jailed. Agunloye denied and mentioned a marriage ceremony between Obasanjo's son and a niece of Leo Adesanya which took place at Aso Rock in which Adesanya was present. Agunloye thus hinted at a family relationship between the two. Why did Obasanjo change his mind on a previously agreed build, operate and transfer with Adesanya? With the way things are done in Nigeria, it is possible that a family relationship breakdown may have made Obasanjo change his mind. Obasanjo may have sought to extract a pound of flesh from Adesanya because of family squabble. And that is costing the nation in economic downturn.
A settlement agreement was reached with SPTCL in 2020 where $200 million was promised, in return for it dropping all claims relating to Mambilla, according to The ICIR.
“It was also agreed that the Lagos-based firm would be entitled to an additional $200 million-plus interest if the government failed to transfer the agreed sum within 180 days.
“President Buhari decided that his administration couldn’t pay the settlement sum, according to a memorandum in August 2020, because low oil prices were hitting the economy due to the outset of the coronavirus.”
What is to be done now? What will Bola Tinubu do? How patriotic can Leo Adesanya be? How loving, as Simon Kolawole asked in his column: Who will love this country? It is certain that the amount Adesanya is asking for is what has been stalling this vital project and the unthinking of the various presidents and their theiving officials, but how patriotic can Adesanya be to forgive his nation and these very selfish officials and let the various suits be withdrawn so that Nigeria can continue and the untold sufferings now visited on the hapless Nigerians be lifted? This is the crucial question and important one for the ears or Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Tunde Akande is both a journalist and pastor. He earned a Masters degree in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos.