Power Sector And Obasanjo’s Regrets.

LEADERSHIP EDITORIAL.

Former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo has been flooding the nation with crocodile tears regarding his inability to fix the power sector after wasting a whopping $16billion dollars in an eight year pretentious policy which became a merry-go round that impoverished the nation. In his own estimation, during his years in office as president, he succeeded in all he set out to achieve except in the power sector. To rationalise this, he said that it was due to paucity of funds!
Obasanjo’s atrocities in the sector were the main subject of a probe by the House of Representatives. At that probe, key actors in the sector testified to the fact that funds injected into it went down the drain with nothing to show for it. They also agreed that the failed attempt by Obasanjo to revive the power sector was a ploy by him to enrich himself and his cronies.
His topmost allies during those years of waste, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala who served as his Minister of Finance and Dr Oby Ezekwesili, who was in charge of due process, said this much in their testimonies at the probe panel.
Okonjo-Iweala told the panel that during that exercise, Obasanjo substituted due process in the award of the contracts and of certification at various stages of execution of contracts for the National Integrated Power Project (NIPP) with waivers.
Ezekwesili confirmed this much when she told the panel that “the country lost billions of naira through flagrant disregard for due process in the award of contracts.” Others who also testified at the panel admitted that “Obasanjo’s eight year rule caused Nigeria colossal loss in trillions of naira arising from his self-centred interests in the award of phony contracts in NIPP.”
In the face of all these, we are persuaded to suggest to Obasanjo to save the nation further anguish regarding his malfeasance especially as it concerns the power sector. Worse things happened in the oil sector which was part of the energy equation.
The then Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Engr Lawal Yar’Adua accused him of forming oligarchs in the oil sector. According to him, Obasanjo concentrated the oil sector in the hands of a few oligarchs who manipulated it at the expense of majority of Nigerians.
We recall the reaction of his Special Adviser on Energy during that period, Engr Joseph Makoji, when he was confronted with the figures bandied around as the amount spent in the energy sector. It was at a press conference. He said that if they had given him that kind of money, there was no way the nation would not have had uninterrupted power supply.
In our opinion, Obasanjo as President, lost all credibility, morals, transparency, sense of accountability as well as his conscience to filthy lucre. Instead of regrets, he should be talking about restitution and  refunding all the money he is believed to have stolen from us. That is what he needs to do and urgently too.