The $16 billion allegedly spent on power projects when
Olusegun Obasanjo was president between 1999 and 2007 came into focus yesterday
as President Muhammadu Buhari vowed to re-open a probe into it.
Addressing a crowd at the All Progressives Congress (APC) campaign held in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, Buhari said his government would recover the money and expose those behind the scam adding that he was unrelenting in his fight against graft.
“The previous government mentioned on their own that they spent $16bn on power but you are better witnesses than myself. Where is the power? Where is the money? We will follow them and eventually God willing, we will catch them and get our money back.”
It would be recalled that the House of Representatives which, in 2008, investigated the $16bn spent on power projects described it as a colossal waste.
The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERRAP) had also in 2016 called for an investigation into the expenditure.
It would also be recalled that in May 2018, Buhari and Obasanjo were at each other’s throat on the matter when the president while receiving members of the Buhari Support Organisation led by the comptroller general of the Nigeria Customs Service, Col. Hameed Ali (retd) remarked: One of the former heads of state…was bragging that he spent $16bn, not naira, on power. Where is the power? Where is the power? And now we have to pay the debts.
“This year and last year’s budgets that I took to the National Assembly were the highest in capital projects: more than $1.3 trillion.”
Responding, Obasanjo said in a statement issued by his spokesman, Mr. Kehinde Akinyemi, said: “The answer is simple: the power is in the seven National Integrated Power Projects and eighteen gas turbines.”
He referred Buhari to his autobiography, My Watch, saying he had cleared allegations about the power project in the book.
The statement said further: “It has come to the attention of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo that a statement credited to President Muhammadu Buhari, apparently without correct information and based on ignorance, suggested that $16bn was wasted on power projects by “a former President.” We believe that the President was re-echoing the unsubstantiated allegation against Chief Obasanjo by his own predecessor but one.
“While it is doubtful that a President with proper understanding of the issue would utter such, it should be pointed out that records from the National Assembly have exculpated President Obasanjo of any wrongdoing concerning the power sector and have proved the allegations as false.
“For the records, Chief Obasanjo has addressed the issues of the power sector and the allegations against him on many occasions and platforms, including in his widely publicised book, My Watch, in which he exhaustively stated the facts and reproduced various reports by both the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, which conducted a clinical investigation into the allegations against Chief Obasanjo, and the Ad Hoc Committee on the Review of the Recommendations in the Report of the Committee on Power on the investigation into how the huge sum of money was spent on Power Generation, Transmission And Distribution between June 1999 and May 2007 without commensurate result.
“We recommend that the President and his co-travellers should read Chapters 41, 42, 43 and 47 of My Watch for Chief Obasanjo’s insights and perspectives on the power sector and indeed what transpired when the allegation of $16bn on power projects was previously made. If he cannot read the three-volume book, he should detail his aides to do so and summarise the chapters in a language that he will easily understand.
“In the same statement credited to the President, it was alleged that there was some bragging by Chief Obasanjo over $16bn spent on power. To inform the uninformed, the so-called $16bn power expenditure was an allegation against Chief Obasanjo’s administration and not his claim. The President also queried where the power generated is. The answer is simple: The power is in the seven National Integrated Power Projects and eighteen gas turbines that Chief Obasanjo’s successor who originally made the allegation of $16bn did not clear from the ports for over a year and the civil works done on the sites.
“Chief Obasanjo challenges, and in fact encourages, anybody to set up another enquiry if in doubt and unsatisfied with the EFCC report and that of the Hon. Aminu Tambuwal-led ad hoc committee.”
