How PDP Aided Nnaji’S Ouster as Power Minister.

Prof. Bart Nnaji

By Chuks Okocha

He resigned as Minister of Power last Tuesday. But it has emerged that the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) actually encouraged President Goodluck Jonathan to remove Prof. Bart Nnaji.

THISDAY is in possession of a damning memo by PDP to President Jonathan and Vice President Namadi Sambo, where the party called for Nnaji's removal. Sambo is also the Chairman of the National Council on Privatisation (NCP).

The memo detailed a harvest of infractions allegedly committed by the former minister in the course of the ongoing privatisation of the power sector.

The letter obtained from a presidency source was written by PDP National Chairman Bamanga Tukur and dated July 22.

In the letter, Tukur highlighted the problems facing the power sector in the country, but indicted Nnaji for alleged complicity in some of the problems and conflict of interest in the privatisation process.

The PDP chairman called for his immediate sack in order for the country to make headway in the ongoing power sector reforms.

Tukur blamed the challenges of power generation on the alleged “Conflict of interest between the office of the Hon. Minister of Power, Prof. Barth Nnaji, who has put personal interest above national imperatives of providing an urgent solution to the gross insufficiency in power generation in Nigeria.

“The minister is known to own large interest in Geometrics, a power company that has been taken over by the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) for an unserviceable loan of N25 billion.”

The party chairman said he suspected the former minister also own proxy interests in some of the new independent power plants (IPPs) “hurriedly put together to benefit from Power Purchase Agreement (PPAs) even though such companies have not met the expected milestone that will put them in the position to generate electricity in the foreseeable future, while the other IPPS with ready-to-go practice (who have not met the necessary criteria and are in a position to generate electricity within the next six to 18months) are frustrated from getting approval for the PPAs because they are perceived as competitors to the minister’s self-made list of IPPs.”

This, according to the PDP chairman, is essentially one of the reasons why ready-to- go independent power projects are stunted.

Raising the issue of nepotism in the selection of companies for the power purchase agreement, he alleged that, “The Chief Executive of Bulk Purchasing Trading Company, Mr. Rumundaka Wonodi, was a staff of Geometrics and promotes the same hurriedly-put- together projects with personal interest for the PPAs. These projects, among other things, do not receive even concrete gas supply commitments from the international oil companies (IOCs) since they are not ready-to-go projects. “Meanwhile, ready-to-go IPPs, which secure a concrete gas supply commitment from IOCs, having fulfilled necessary criteria and are in position to generate power immediately, are denied PPAs approval and nominations for World Bank guarantee by the Bulk Trader because they are not on the minister’s favoured list. The consequence of this is that no Power Purchase Agreement is being signed and no IPP project can come on stream in time to fulfill our programme in the power sector.”

According to the memo, “The non-signing of PPAs for ready-to-go projects by the Bulk Trading company hampers the good work done by the gas aggregation company, the IOCs, indigenous oil and gas companies and the Ministry for Petroleum Resources who have put in place a robust plan for ‘Gas for Power’ arrangement. This is because when no PPA gets signed, no gas purchase agreement gets concluded. PPA in essence triggers the securitisation of payment for supply and consequently acts as impetus for investment in substantial gas supply in the value chain.”

He also added, “The indebtedness of the Hon. Minister’s company to Diamond Bank and AMCON is a pressure point that affects an honest and objective discharge of his duties when the reform process is at its infancy”.

In view of these weighty allegations, the PDP chairman said there was “an urgent need to remove all stumbling blocks threatening the fulfilment of our promises. Any further promises to Nigerians on any issue of our national life by the PDP-led administration will be discountenanced if we fail to deliver on the power sector”.

The party called for a far-reaching measure, challenging President Jonathan to: “Relieve the Hon. Minister of Power from his position for his conflicting interest as a regulator and participant in the power sector; reconstitute the management of the Bulk Trading Company; invite the leadership of international energy companies like General Electric of USA, Siemens and Credible IPPs who have ready-to-go projects and have signed Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contracts for their power plants for discussions”.

He maintained that “the international energy companies have already established these ready-to-go projects and would be in a better position to provide a guide. This will be the new momentum to rescue the industry. It is the IPPs that are the engines of power sector participation in the electricity industry, just as privatisation is transfer of existing monopolies to private hands.”

Nnaji eventually resigned his appointment last Tuesday, citing undue pressure from some vested interests in the power sector as the reason for throwing in the towel.

He said he took the decision to save the privatisation and reform programme from people who might want to use ulterior motives to jeopardise it.

His resignation was inevitable after it was discovered during the meeting of the National Council on Privatisation (NCP) a fortnight ago that companies reportedly owned or linked to him made bids for the Afam Generation Company Limited and Enugu Distribution Company Limited.

This runs contrary to the Code of Ethics of the privatisation process, which bars staff of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) and members of the National Council on Privatisation (NCP) from buying shares in companies being privatised.

Speaking further on why he quit, Nnaji said that rather than drag President Jonathan and the entire privatisation process through the mud, he chose to quit.

He, however, said he reminded the president that he had brought it to his attention two weeks earlier that a company he owned was part of a bidding consortium which submitted bids for Enugu Distribution Company.

The former minister further said that his time as a government official, first as special adviser to the president, and then as power minister, had been fraught with all sorts of efforts to bring him down.

He felt that rather than allow the naysayers destroy the entire process, it was better for him to leave.

President Jonathan, however, gave Nnaji an official clearance, saying he accepted his resignation to protect the privatisation process.

Speaking at a town hall meeting in Onitsha, Anambra State during his visit to the state on Thursday, the president said the former minister did nothing wrong.

Bakassi Peninsula: A Nigeria-Cameroun Kashimir In The Making?

TAIWO OGUNMOLA.

The renewed agitation for reclamation of Bakassi Peninsula by prominent Nigerians and lawmakers and the controversies generated by the moves put a question mark on the nation’s continuous peaceful coexistence with Cameroun, writes TAIWO OGUNMOLA who attended a brainstorming session by erudite scholars on the issue recently at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) Lagos.
As the possibility of amicable resolution of the dispute get dimmer by the day, many Nigerians had expected that by now the vexed issue of Bakassi Peninsula would have been easily resolved amongst the sister countries to pave way for a more beneficial bilateral international relations between both countries.
Thus, the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) recently assembled notable Nigerians to a brainstorming session on the Bakassi Peninsula after, ten years of International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling on the subject. The task of the professors and erudite scholars was simple; to look at the way out of the imbroglio before the issue degenerates into crisis between both countries.
Dissecting the issue, former Minister of External Affairs, Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, in a paper titled ‘Lead Us Not Into Temptation’ emphasized that, “I think that the brewing crisis over Bakassi Peninsula has all the potential of becoming ‘Nigeria-Cameroun Kashimir’ if care is not taken. Akinyemi said he was amazed at the memorandum written by Dr. T.O Elias that Bakassi did not belong to Nigeria and that it belongs to Cameroun.
He went on to say, “It is a matter of regret and should be considered a failure of a state policy that we entered appearance at the court in response to the suit filed by Cameroun.
“I also accept that the acceptance of judgment of the court and the handing over of the Bakassi Peninsula were not only acts of indecent haste, but the handing over without an act of the National Assembly was itself an act of illegality and unconstitutionality”.
Now that the chick has come to roost again Akinyemi without inhibition said members of the National Assembly who served under former President, Olusegun Obasanjo when he committed the illegality should be blamed for it.
He appealed to the National Assembly, the Presidency, media and foreign policy elite not to raise false hopes in order for the issue to be resolved.The foreign affairs expert advised that government should take urgent steps to engage the Bakassi Self Determination Front in a dialogue to dissuade its members from embarking on a confrontation with Cameroun.
For the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice Mohammed Adoke, the call to seek review of the ICJ decision was not misplaced.
The legal guru said the review attained prominence in national discourse in view of the fact that Article 61 of the statute of the ICJ permits such a review where the application is based upon the discovery of a fact which is decisive and was unknown to the court and to the party claiming revision when the judgment was given.
Adoke said, “It may well be that there is increased agitation for this option now given that the statute provides that a review should be initiated before 10 years have elapsed from the date of the judgment that is before 10October 2012.”
Painting a critical picture of the scenario, the former president of West Africa Bar Association Mr. Femi Falana, Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) said country needs to move speedily to avert crisis. According to him, “The Federal Government does not appear ready to revisit the ruling of ICJ and we have a duty as a nation to take cognizance of the interests of displaced Bakassi people.
“They may out of frustration declare their own independent and they have the right to do it. It is a challenge to us as a nation to address the injustice done to the people before it is too late”.
With such impression created by the legal luminaries, the royal Highness of Bakassi, Etim Edet came out of his shell to say that they are being used to play politics, insisting that they don’t want to be with Cameroun.
According to him, “We came with a heavy heart and it seems the labour of our heroes past seems to be in vain. Bakassi should not be condemned to perpetual slavery because for several years we shared the same culture with Nigeria. We have lost our identity and as I am I don’t have a place to stay”.
His disposition on the issues is obviously at variance with the ICJ judgment which decided that the sovereignty over the disputed Bakassi Peninsula is with Cameroun as a result of delimitation between Great Britain and Germany under the Anglo-German Agreement of March 11, 1913.
Cameroun filed the case in 1994 concerning a dispute relating to the question of sovereignty over the Bakassi but also requested the determination of the maritime boundary between the two states.Pursuant to an additional application by Cameroon later that year, the subject of the dispute was extended to include a definite mutual land boundary from Lake Chad to the sea.
With the hand writing boldly written on the wall, most people familiar with Bakassi Peninsula are of the view that the trend would generate crisis now that the Bakassi stalemate is moving to October 10 which is the expiration of the ten-year window of grace allowed by the International Court of Justice for an appeal on the ill-fated judgment on Bakassi.
More so, that the Nigerian government is sitting on the fence not making any categorical statement on the volatile Bakassi issue. Some analysts who lampooned the present administration have also lauded the former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo for some of his achievements, especially now that Nigeria is experiencing the Boko-Haram insurgence.
Some opined that Obasanjo would never allow such to happen and would have taken a drastic action. But the agreement he signed on 13 June 2006 left the territory completely in Camerounian control within the next 2 years after he agreed to withdraw Nigerian troops within 60 days.
Nigeria began to withdraw its forces, comprising some 3,000 troops, beginning 1 August 2006, and a ceremony on 14 August marked the formal handover of the northern part of the peninsula.The remainder stayed under Nigerian civil authority for two more years. On 22 November 2007, the Nigerian Senate passed a resolution declaring that the withdrawal from the Bakassi Peninsula was illegal.
The government took no action, and handed the final parts of Bakassi over to Cameroun on 14 August 2008 as planned, but a Federal High Court had stated this should be delayed until all accommodations for resettled Bakassians had been concluded.
The government did not seem to plan to heed this court order and did set the necessary mechanisms into motion to override it.
Fishermen displaced from Bakassi had been settled in a landlocked area called New Bakassi which they claimed is already inhabited and not suitable for fishermen like them but only for farmers.
The House of Representatives has promised to re-visit the Green Tree Agreement (GTA) signed between Nigeria and Cameroon.The GTA was done at Greentree, New York, on June 12, 2006 following the ICJ ruling ceding Bakassi Peninsula to neigbhouring Cameroun in October 10, 210.
With the agreement, Nigeria recognizes the sovereignty of Cameroun over the Bakassi Peninsula in accordance with the judgment of the International Court of Justice in the matter of land and maritime boundary between Cameroun and Nigeria.But following agitations by the Bakassi natives and moves to reclaim their territory, the Lower House of the National Assembly said it has become imperative to take a second look at the controversial agreement.
The chairman, House Committee on Treaty and Agreement, Mr. Bush-Alebiosu, who dropped the hint while interacting with the Efik Elders and Leaders Forum in Calabar revealed that because of Nigeria’s leadership position in Africa, she is a signatory to more than 200 International treaties of bi-lateral and multi-lateral nature.
Alebiosu said: “We are here to look into things from Green Tree Agreement point of view to see whether they are in our favour or not and how it affects the people of Bakassi. The Committee had since visited the affected community and is expected to make recommendations to the House of Representatives.

Onitsha River Port Begins Operation.

President Goodluck Jonathan

By John Iwori

Following its formal commissioning by President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan   Thursday, the multi-billion Onitsha River Port Complex, Anambra State has begun operations.

Various cargo handling equipment were seen in operations as the euphoria that heralded the formal commissioning of the Onitsha River Port Complex ebbed with the departure of guests to the venues of other projects earmarked for commissioning by President Jonathan.

The formal unveiling of the Onitsha River Port Complex, which is located in the commercial nerve centre of the Eastern part of the country, followed its complete rehabilitation by the Federal Government.

While performing the cutting of tape ceremony, President Jonathan  said the N4.6 billion River Port was unique and a signal for more things to come.

He added that his administration decided to embark on the development of the country’s inland waterways transport as a way of exploiting all avenues of enhancing both road, rail, air and water transportation in the country.

His words: “The river or marine transport must be enhanced and to do it, we need inland port like the one in Onitsha. Our target is to link all the ports by roads and rail so that doing business in Nigeria becomes easy. The river ports must be linked up to other areas of resource. Today, the process is being started and others on the drawing board must be completed”, he said.

The President expressed the hope that a well-developed inland water transportation system will lessen the burden on our highways, which often wear away because of the large cargo plying the roads.

He used the occasion of the commissioning to assure Nigerians that he would deliver on his electoral promises and urged Nigerians to exercise patience and keep faith with the country and his administration.

He lauded an indigenous firm, Inter-Bau Construction Limited, for its efficient delivery on the execution of the project.

Minister of Transport, Senator Idris Umar had earlier in his opening remarks said that the Onitsha River Port Complex started in 2009.

Describing it as another milestone in the quest to re-position the inland waterways, Idris explained that the facility involved the construction of a new port building, staff quarters, erosion control, and procurement of modern cargo equipment among others.

He said the river port would also make for effective transportation of goods and progressively open other inland waterways to ferry goods to different destinations in the country.

Described as Nigeria’s largest river port, the Onitsha River Port Complex is complete with new facilities, warehouses and equipment such as cranes and forklifts.

The Federal Government with the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) supervised the execution of the project.

“The refurbishment was overseen by NIWA. It restores the port to its original splendour and offers new levels of operational efficiency. The reconditioned river port complex will also serve as a massive boost and complement to the newly dredged lower River Niger”, the authority said in a statement.

THISDAY recall  that prior to its overhaul, the port had suffered years of neglect, underutilisation and disrepair.

Former President Shehu Shagari commissioned the Onitsha River Port in 1983. It however slipped into a state of underutilisation and disrepair, forcing operators of ferries and other economic vessels to abandon it a few years after.  

With the River Niger fully dredged and the waterways well protected by NIWA patrol boats and the Marine Police, the Onitsha River Port has received a new lease of life.

FG picks management team for sovereign wealth fund .

BusinessDay

Okonjo Iweala

The federal government, on Tuesday, announced a top management team to manage the country's sovereign wealth fund, a move which analyst believed would steer oil revenues into longer-term investment, announcing a top management team for its new sovereign wealth fund.

Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said the fund would start with a cash hoard of around $1 billion. The top team will come from First Bank and UBS.

Nigeria is one of only three OPEC member states that do not have an SWF, and the new fund is being keenly watched by global markets and investors in Africa's second biggest economy.

The government hopes the fund will provide a firmer legal basis to ring-fence Nigeria's savings from competing demands so it can better save when oil prices are high.

Sovereign wealth funds are essentially government-run investment portfolios that buy into anything from mainstream assets such as stocks and bonds to direct foreign investment.

Nigeria, Africa's top energy producer, pumps over 2 million barrels of oil a day but has frittered much of it away over the years on government wages, other recurrent spending and corruption, ills that Okonjo-Iweala quit her World Bank job to come back and tackle.

Auditor and consultancy firm KPMG helped hire the SWF board.

Mahey Rasheed, a member of the board of First Bank, was chosen as the chairman of the fund team with UBS executive and former JP Morgan head Uche Orji chosen as the managing director and chief executive officer.

Okonjo-Iweala said she hoped by the end of the year the team would lay out plans for the $1 billion but did not say when investments would start.

The SWF has three main aims: saving money for future generations, funding infrastructure and defending the economy against commodity price shocks.

"I think the sovereign wealth fund will make Nigeria more attractive for investors," Okonjo-Iweala told reporters.

She said she hoped more money would be paid in later, adding that 20 percent of the fund would go to each of its three targets and the board would decide how to invest the other 40 percent.

President Goodluck Jonathan signed a bill into law in May last year authorising the SWF, but powerful state governors originally blocked the fund, saying it was unconstitutional.

They later agreed to it going ahead, albeit with an initial limit of $1 billion, a fraction of the $7 billion savings that are in Nigeria's Excess Crude Account (ECA).

Many state governors fear the SWF will mean less money for them to spend than the current ECA system for saving oil cash.

"The battle was long but I think the country stands to gain and I think it was worth it," Okonjo-Iweala said on Tuesday.

The SWF is meant to replace the ECA eventually but Okonjo-Iweala told Reuters last week the two will run side-by-side until people get comfortable with the SWF.

Critics say the ECA is opaque and can be too easily used.

The account contained $20 billion in 2007 but fell to $3 billion after a presidential election last year, despite five years of high oil prices. It has since risen to $7 billion.

Corruption: Buhari dares IBB.

By CLIFFORD NDUJIHE, DAPO AKINREFON, MICHAEL EBOH & GBENGA OKE
FORMER Head of State and Presidential Candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, in the 2011 general elections, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd), yesterday dared former Military President, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (rtd), to expose him if he had facts and insisted that IBB and other leaders played crucial roles in destroying Nigeria’s oil industry.
IBB had on Monday threatened to expose Buhari’s shady deals in the oil sector when he functioned as Petroleum Minister and later chairman of the Petroleum Trust Fund, PTF, if Buhari did not shut his mouth.

Former heads of state, Generals Ibrahim Babangida and Muhammadu Buhari

Speaking through his spokesman, Mr. Kassim Afegbua, the former Military President was responding to Buhari’s comments blaming President Goodluck Jonathan, IBB, Obasanjo for killing the nation’s oil industry.
On IBB specifically, Buhari, who was hosting leaders and members of the CPC, led by the House of Representatives member from Funtua/Dandume Federal Constituency of Katsina State, Dr. Mansur Abdulkadir, on Monday, said the administration of General Ibrahim Babangida was responsible for the high level of corruption and destruction in the petroleum industry.
He added that the corrupt practices in the oil sector during the eras of Babangida, Obasanjo and Jonathan had led to the enslaving of the masses.
Countering, IBB had reportedly said: “We are conversant with General Buahri’s so-called holier-than-thou attitude. He was a one-time Minister of Petroleum and we have good records of his tenure as minister. Secondly, he presided over the Petroleum Trust Fund, PTF, which records we also have. We challenge him to come out with clean hands in those two portfolios. Those, who live in glass houses, do not throw stones. General Buhari should be properly guided.”
However, Buhari insisted on his comments and dared IBB to carry out the threat of exposing him.

Decadent state of petroleum industry

Speaking through Engr. Rotimi Fashakin, the CPC spokesman, Buhari insisted he spoke the truth.
He said: “The truth of the matter is that General Buhari has just stated the obvious and it is what everybody knows about the decadent state of the Nigerian Petroleum Industry. Nigerians know which regime contributed immensely to that sector. So we still insist that what General Buhari stated is the truth and if General Babangida says he has facts about General Buhari over the issue, let him bring them out.
“At least Prof Tam David West worked closely with both General Buhari and General Babangida, so Tam David West should be able to tell Nigerians who among both men actually contributed to the decadence state of the oil industry.”

Corruption blossom under Obasanjo—Falae

Reacting to the exchanges, yesterday, one-time Minister of Finance and Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Chief Olu Falae, told Vanguard on phone that corruption reached an alarming height during Obasanjo’s administration in 1999.
His words: “The people are former heads of state and to the extent that corruption had been going on for quite sometime in the country, maybe that is why he (Buhari) is holding them accountable. But I don’t know the statistics or information to either agree or disagree with him (Buhari).
“But there is corruption in the whole country; the country is awash with corruption and nobody can really know where it started from though some government functionaries can. Corruption is the biggest problem we have.
“I cannot attribute it to any particular person but this thing started in earnest since 1999 that was during the Obasanjo administration; that was when the thing really blossomed.
In the past, one suspected that a few military leaders were the ones, who had access to the money, but since we returned to civilian rule, thousands of people now got into the act: from the local to state and federal government levels. And it has been growing since then. Corruption has grown very fast since 1999.”
At a time other leaders were exonerating themselves from the decay that had been inflicted on the citizenry, Obasanjo said yesterday that his regret after eight years in power as a civilian president was that he was unable to fix the epileptic power situation of the country.
President Jonathan had on Monday dissociated his administration from the rot, saying there was no how his regime, under two years, could have destroyed all amenities and infrastructure, if his predecessors provided them after many years in power.
Obasanjo, who was speaking at the Nigeria Leadership Initiative, NLI, as Guest Speaker Forum in Lagos, said, however, that his inability to fix the power problem was as a result of lack of funds in the initial period of his administration, owing to the low price of crude oil in the international market, Nigeria’s depleted foreign reserves and huge debt burden.
He also blamed oil companies operating in the country for their non-chalant contribution towards addressing the nation’s power problem.
Some oil companies abandoned Nigeria—Obasanjo
According to Obasanjo, oil companies in Nigeria refused to contribute towards addressing the power problem, except for only one of them, Agip.
He said: “During my time as a military president, my major aim was forging a united country and a self-reliant economy. I later realised that we can only achieve that with a constitution. When I came back to power 20 years after, I also pursued the agenda of uniting Nigeria and building a self-reliant economy. I can say we achieved all that.
”However, my regret is that we did not address the power issue in the country before we left. This is mainly because of the absence of funds at that time. If the country had money at the early stage of my presidency, we would have fixed the power.
“The country’s earning was low when we came to power; crude oil was selling at about $18 – $20 per barrel. When our earning started improving, we then started the Independent Power Projects, IPP.
“The oil companies abandoned Nigeria in our drive towards addressing the power problem. They did not do what they were supposed to do in that regard. Only one oil company, Agip, supported the country”.
Asked to rate Nigeria’s current leadership, Obasanjo said, “I will not want to comment publicly on Nigeria’s leadership at the moment.”

Nnaji resigns amid controversies, scandal.

 by Martin Ayankola, Fidelis Soriwei and Olalekan Adetayo.

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Minister of Power, Prof. Bart Nnaji, on Tuesday resigned from office amid controversies and allegations of conflict of interest in the privatisation process.
Besides being at loggerheads with Power Holding Company of Nigeria’s workers on sundry issues, he was said to have interests in two firms that submitted bids for the Afam Power Plc and the  Enugu Electricity Distribution Company Plc.
The PUNCH learnt on Tuesday that Nnaji  must have been pressured into resigning from the Federal Executive Council by the Presidency because of  fears that the issue of conflict of interest could damage  the credibility of the privatisation process, which has local and foreign investors as bidders.
The privatisation of 17 electricity firms is scheduled to be concluded in two months’ time.
Meanwhile,  President Goodluck Jonathan said he had accepted the resignation.
In a statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, the President thanked Nnaji for his services to the nation.
It was gathered that it was when it was established that Nnaji had interest in two firms, Skipper Nigeria Limited and Eastern Electric Nigeria Limited, that the National Council on Privatisation chaired by Vice- President Namadi Sambo, decided to cancel the technical bid evaluation process conducted for the two firms.
The NCP had last Friday named seven firms as the successful bidders for five generation companies.
 According to Chairman of the National Council on Privatisation’s Technical Committee, Mr. Atedo Peterside, the successful bidders qualified to take part in the financial bidding slated for September.
The preferred bidders for Ughelli Power Plant are Phoenix Electricity, Transcorp Consortium and Ampiron Power Distribution Limited.
Two bidders, CMEC Energy and GPN Nestoil Power Services Limited, were named for the Sapele Power Plant.
Only one firm each emerged successful for Geregu, Kainji and Shiroro Power Plants. They are Ampiron Power Distribution Limited, Mainstream Energy Solution Limited and North South Power Company Limited respectively.
He explained that the seven firms were chosen after scaling the 750 pass mark for the bidding process which involved submission of bids by pre-qualified bidders.
There was speculation that the NCP had been silent on the bidders that were prequalified for the Afam Power Station because of the conflict of interest that had arisen during the privatisation process.
A national newspaper had reported that Nnaji, a member of the NCP by virtue of his position as Minister of Power, had told the council that O & M Solutions of Pakistan, a member of one of the consortia bidding for Afam, had worked as a contractor for Geometric Power.
Nnaji  further notified the NCP that Geometric Power had a minority stake in Eastern Electric Nigeria Limited, which had submitted technical and financial bids for Enugu Distribution Company Limited on July 31.
He also reportedly informed the council that owing to his position, he had notified President Jonathan of his company’s bid for Enugu Distribution Company, and brought it to their attention that although he had an interest in Geometric Power, he had resigned from its board and transferred his shares to a blind trust.
Following this disclosure, Nnaji was said to have excused himself from the consideration of the report of the technical bids.
Having been informed of Nnaji’s direct and indirect interest in two companies being privatised, the report said the council decided to cancel the technical evaluation that had been conducted for Afam and disbanded the evaluation team.
Reacting to the issue of conflict of interest few hours before his resignation, Nnaji said he had voluntarily on Friday, August 24 , 2012, informed other members of the National Council on Privatisation at a meeting, which considered the report on the technical evaluation of bids for generation companies. He said he had revealed to the committee that a company with which he was associated before he joined the government in 2010, was a client of a member of a consortium interested in acquiring majority shares of the Afam power plant in Rivers State.
A statement from his office then said, “The minister consequently applied to be excused from all deliberations at the meeting, and he maintained his ground despite the insistence of some of his colleagues.
 “The minister ought to be commended for exemplary commitment to transparency, probity and the common good. If most public officers had been behaving like Professor Bart Nnaji , there would not have been trust deficit in Nigeria over the decades in respect of the relationship between the people and those in government. The unprecedented domestic and international investor confidence in the
Nigerian power sector is directly traceable to the personal and professional integrity of the process drivers like Professor Nnaji.
“We welcome wholeheartedly the decision of the National Council on Privatisation that bids for the Afam plant be evaluated all over again because justice should not only be done but also seen to have been done by all and sundry.’’
Before he finally threw in the towel, the former minister had also been at the receiving end of the war declared by workers of the PHCN.
The workers had opened a can of worms on some financial transactions allegedly carried out by Nnaji which reportedly drained the purse of PHCN.
They had given the embattled minister a seven-day ultimatum to explain what he did with the money running into millions of naira which they claimed was withdrawn from the firm’s coffer.
Vice-President of the National Union of Electricity Workers Employees, Mr. Etete Ntukuben, last Friday, called for a probe, not just of the PHCN superannuation account, but the entire account of the PHCN.
Ntukuben said that investigators should be brought in to take a critical look at the withdrawals by the  former minister from the account of the PHCN.
“Let us have a holistic look at the PHCN account apart from the pension account; we should take a look at the minister’s withdrawals.
A lot of millions of naira have been withdrawn and given to soldiers and policemen in the guise of security maintenance,” he said.

Why Are CPC Leaders Impervious To Reason?

Abubakar Yusuf Bakori.

How far can the national leaders of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) go in their stubborn resistance to reason without ultimately weakening or harming the party? Their present approach to ending the internal crises rocking the party is only making the situation worse.
The appointment of caretaker committees to run the affairs of the party in states such as Kano and Katsina states is only intensifying the crises. In fact, these committees are not welcomed in these states because they were brought to displace grassroots-based politicians who are the main strength of the party.
They are being tolerated rather than welcomed. Appointing caretaker committee is a clever way to shield the national leaders of the party from taking  full responsibility for the party’s disappointing performance during the 2011 general elections.
No keen political observer of Nigerian politics can be fooled by the subterfuge of creating or imposing caretaker committees to protect the national leaders from responsibility. Were they not responsible for the crises in the first place by the introduction of the needless and unjust policy of substitution and imposition of candidates?
Didn’t they deliberately reject the outcomes of peacefully and credibly conducted gubernatorial primaries in Kano, Katsina and Bauchi states because the results didn’t favour their preferred aspirants? Instead, they imposed candidates that lost the primaries and the voters revolted at the polls. This injustice was the beginning of the intractable internal crises rocking the CPC.
Therefore, the establishment of caretaker committees is a clever way of dodging the solution. General Buhari needs to assert himself over the way  the party national officers are running the CPC. Why should Buhari remain indifferent when injustice was committed against duly elected candidates? He is the moral pillar of the party’s credibility and Nigerians would have expected him to overrule any decision by the party leaders, which was inconsistent with justice and the principle of internal democracy. The tail should not be wagging the dog in this respect.
If the CPC leaders are really serious about addressing the internal crises decisively, then a caretaker committee should also be appointed at the national level of the party to replace the officials responsible for the mismanagement of the party’s goodwill.
It is immoral to remain in office after being responsible for the losses your party suffered during the elections. Leadership is about taking responsibility for your own poor judgement, which ultimately cost your party victory.
It is on record that the former British Labour Prime Minister, Mr. Gordon Brown took personal responsibility for the defeat of his party by the Conservatives.
Do the current national leaders of the CPC have any justification setting up caretaker committees and creating scapegoats when they themselves have no reason to remain in office any longer? They exhausted energy fighting the party’s popular candidates and imposing their own who were never legitimately elected at the primaries. Do they have to wait for General Buhari to tell them to take the path of honour and resign? Should any sensitive leader value office more than his credibility?
When they called a post-election evaluation meeting at the party secretariat in Abuja, the national leaders were openly booed by the chairmen of the party chapters across the country. Wasn’t that embarrassing incident a signal that they have lost the confidence of the CPC members and supporters?
Let us face it: the CPC requires radical surgery and that cannot be achieved by the present cosmetic strategy of sacking democratically elected leaders and replacing them with caretaker committees. The excessive idealism of the CPC national leaders was mainly responsible for the poor showing of the party during the 2011 elections. Humility is a critical element of effective leadership.
The all-knowing mentality of the CPC national leaders, which seeks to shut out other better ideas and opinions, will take the party nowhere. Any humble leader should listen to well-meaning advice. Unfortunately, when leaders assume a tin god posture, they cannot see reason or acknowledge where they go wrong, even if it may cost the party dearly. In the words of the great inspiration writer, John Mason, “the person who never changes his opinion can never correct his mistakes.”
Inflexibility and the posture of indispensability is the core reason why the current national leaders of the CPC should not be trusted with the responsibility of restructuring and reforming the party. They are part and parcel of the crises rocking the party. No realistic party leader should expect to displace popular politicians like Mohammed Abacha, Lado Dan Marke and Dan China in Kano, Katsina and Bauchi States and carry the people along. These popular politicians have touched the lives of the people so much that you cannot detach them from hearts of the ordinary people.
Only a man living in the moon would have expected Col. Lawal Ja’afaru Isa to defeat Mohammed Abacha at the primaries or any other elections. But the national leaders ignored reality and imposed Isa at all costs. And the party paid dearly for that miscalculation.
The appointment of caretaker committees to replace elected chairmen of CPC chapters in the country is like holding a conductor responsible for a man-made accident and letting the driver go scot-free!
General Buhari should order the immediate dissolution of the national leadership of the party and replace them with credible and grassroots-based politicians who can relate with the people better and win their trust. They should stop scratching the surface of crises that demand radical and courageous solution. In fact, Chief Mike Ahamba, a former Buhari loyalist, foresaw the disaster they were leading the CPC into and resigned. They are exploiting General Buhari’s trusting attitude to sit tight even when it is obvious that their continuation in office is an obstacle to progress.