Business Atiku Reveals How Obasanjo's Stubbornness Caused Decay of Nigeria's Power Sector

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LequteMan

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Nigeria - According to ex vice President Abubakar Atiku, the decay and rot in the country's power sector began when then president Olusegun Obasanjo decided to go full throttle instead of taking things one at a time.

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In a PUNCH interview, he says he refused to lay down the foundations of the power sector then because he had a disagreement with Obasanjo.

"He believed we should go left; I believed we should go right. He said I should become the chairman of the committee, I accepted. He inaugurated it, but I never sat."

"He inaugurated it, but I never sat. I allowed the Minister of Power then, Liyel Imoke, to sit. You can see that I was right because I told him what we needed was short-term, medium-term and long-term solutions to the power sector reform.

"He wanted to go for the long-term and up till now, we are not yet there. If we had adopted the short- term and medium-term solutions to our power problem, we would have been self-sufficient by 2005; even before we left office; because that strategy was planned for small and medium power stations in various parts of the country.

"We had even harvested international bids: people, who were prepared to come and invest $500m, $250m to set up small and medium -size power stations. By now, we would have been self-sufficient, but he said, ‘Oh, we must go gas’ and I said, ‘Gas? There is a problem. It’s long term; a lot of investments.

"There is instability in the region (Niger Delta). You must bring peace, before they would allow you to evacuate the gas. There is the issue of building the gas infrastructure, which takes a longer time and also a lot of investments and that I don’t see us even getting there in the next 10 years.’

"But he said, ‘No, this is the way I want. We must go that way.’ I said, ‘Ok, fine, you are the President,’ and I declined to sit on the power committee till we left office.

"That is why when there was an investigation by the National Assembly; nobody invited me because my name was never there. Contracts were awarded and paid 100 per cent upfront; people disappeared with the money, and even stole, yet no power.

"I stand by this: We must have short- term, medium-term and long- term power solutions.

#Nigeria #Atiku #Obasanjo
 
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