Patience Leonard, PBA Journalism MenteeMedia adviser to the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Paul Ibe, has refuted Omoyele Sowore’s claim that the Olusegun Obasanjo/Atiku administration spent 16 billion US dollars on power projects.
Sowore, who’s the African Action Congress (AAC) presidential candidate recently called out Atiku Abubakar, alleging that $16 billion was spent on power project, during Obasanjo’s administration in which he served as Vice President but no result.
Sowore made the claimed to mock Atiku following his reaction to the news of Nigeria’s national electric power grid collapse recently.
Atiku had in a series of tweet, while reacting to news of the national power grid collapse, proposed what he described as “innovative financing” of infrastructure that would facilitate private sector investment in the power sector.
“Due to the priority that I place on the power sector upon which the successes of other sectors are hinged, I am proposing innovative financing of infrastructure that will involve the facilitation of a review of the financial, legal, and regulatory environment to promote private investment in power, among other sectors.
“I’ll promote the incentivisation, with tax breaks, a consortium of private sector institutions to establish an Infrastructure Debt Fund (IDF) to primarily mobilise domestic and international private resources for the financing and delivery of large infrastructure projects across all the sectors of the economy. The IDF will have an initial investment capacity of approximately US$20 billion.
“In addition, I’ll cause the creation of an Infrastructure Development Credit Guarantee Agency to complement the operation of the IDF by de-risking investments in infrastructure to build investor confidence in taking risks and investing capital. -AA,” Atiku tweeted.
Atiku who is contesting for president on the platform of PDP, made the proposal as what he would do in the power sector when elected in 2023.
Sowore, in his reaction to Atiku’s proposed intervention in the power sector, however, alleged that the national grid collapse started when Atiku and Obasanjo invested $16 billion in the sector.
Sowore wrote, “The National Electrical grid collapse started when you and Obasanjo invested $16 billion to procure darkness for Nigeria, the @MBuhari regime came to gazette grid collapse as a law. Alhaji @atiku, don’t pretend that you care about the National Grid! #WeCantContinueLikeThis.”
Countering Atiku’s accusation that he does fail during elections, and moves out of the country to return and contest, Sowore said, “You’ve done your rounds from SDP- UNCP- PDP- CAN-PDP- APC back to PDP; you have never done anything for the Nigerian people, you’ve only taken care of your needs and those that benefit your family, cronies, and friends. It is time to quit and let Nigeria experience electricity!”
However, in a series of tweets, Atiku’s media, Ibe countered Sowore’s claims and accused him of lying against the PDP presidential flag bearer.
He wrote, “ a lie told over and over again does not translate to a truth. It is a lie that Obasanjo/Atiku spent US$16 billion on power projects. That lie is powered by politics. Whatever power that is being generated today was from the power plants built by the Obj/Atiku”.
He said that most of the power plants commissioned by President Buhari’s administration were initiated, designed and contracted out for construction by the Obasanjo/Atiku administration between 1999 and 2007.
“It is on record that after Obasanjo quit office as military Head of State in 1979, there was no power plant sited or established in Nigeria for 20 years until the advent of the Obasanjo/Atiku administration.
“It is also pertinent to remind you that it was from the ECA that the country paid $12 billion to take down the stock of its foreign debts. Sadly, the servicing of the nation’s foreign debt in this season has surpassed the revenue,” Ibe narrated.
He, however, said that it was $3.5 billion and not $16 billion as being “bandied”, that was spent under the National Integrated Power Project (NIPP) as at 2017.
Ibe further revealed that the money was gotten from Excess Crude Account (ECA).
Recall that in 2015, a Senate Ad-hoc Committee probing the power sector from 1999 to 2015 was set up.
The former Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Power, Ambassador Godknows Igali, had during a meeting with the committee said that the value chain elements involved in power sector needs to be revamped.
He disclosed that despite the sector’s need, budgetary votes were seldom released fully.
Igali gave a breakdown of the appropriations and money released from 1999 to 2015 as follows:
• 1999 – N11.206 billion appropriated, N6.698billion released;
• 2000 – N59.064 billion appropriated, N49,785 billion released;
• 2001 – N103. 397 billion appropriated, N70.927 billion released;
• 2002 – N54.647 billion appropriated, N41.196 billion released;
• 2003 – N55.583 billion appropriated, N5.207 billion released;
• 2004 – N54.647 billion appropriated, N54. 647 billion released;
• 2005 – N90.283 billion appropriated, N71.889 billion released;
• 2006 – N74.308 billion appropriated, N74. 3 billion released;
• 2007 – N100 billion appropriated, N99.8 billion released;
• 2008 – N156 billion appropriated, N112 billion released;
• 2009 – N89. 5 billion appropriated, N87billion released;
• 2010 – N172 billion appropriated, N70 billion released;
• 2011 – N125 billion appropriated, N61 billion released;
• 2012 – N197. 9 billion appropriated, N53. 5 billion released;
• 2013- N146 billion appropriated, N49 billion released;
• 2014 – N69.8 billion appropriated, N48 billion released; and,
• 2015 – N5. 240billion appropriated
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