Power sector probe: What Nigerians want

By Olu Osunde - 13.04.2008

As the on-going probe of the power sector gets messier with more revelations on the alleged misappropriation of the energy fund, more Nigerians have continued to react, calling for tough punishment for those involved in the scam.

Although, opinion is divided on whether the man at the centre of the crisis, former president Olusegun Obasanjo, should be invited by the Elumelu-led committee, to explain the extent of his involvement in the scam, the entire Nigerians, however, appear united in their desire to see that the probe, at the end, produce a stable electricity supply.

As one of them put it, “it will be an arrant nonsense, if the probe at the end of the day fail to yield stable electricity to the people.”

The scam, which is in the region of $16bn, was said to have been approved and paid out to various categories of contractors, who according to the probe panel, failed to perform.

Although controversy over the actual amount of money involved in the energy projects are yet to be resolved, despite the Central Bank’s boss, Prof Soludo’s claim that only $3 billion of the total sum has so far been released, majority of Nigerian respondents who are disillusioned with the level of corruption see the claim as a big cover up and an attempt by Soludo to be economical with the truth.

Some of the worrisome things most Nigerians frowned at and which the committee discovered enhanced the perpetration of the fraud was the issuance of large sum of money without bank’s bond guarantee and the approval of waiver by the former president on the claimed advice of the former minister for power.

In his reaction to the probe, Chief Ebenezer Babatope in an interview with our correspondent emphatically stressed that what matters to Nigerians was a stable electricity supply, which they need to run the economy and not the probe.

He described the probe as “a barren exercise which will produce no result.”

The president of Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Olisa Agbakoba while reacting to the same issue came hard on the former president saying, he should be called to testify and give account of his stewardship.

According to him, “as the primary participant, he needs to come and talk about what he did or did not do.”

In the same vein, a chieftain of the ANPP in Benue State, Professor Daniel Saror, observed that, “Nigerians have been abused for long”, saying, “they have not seen value for their money spent on projects”, adding that, it is the reason for the underdevelopment in the rural areas. He therefore appealed to Nigerians to always rise against corruptive tendencies of their leaders.

In the case of Hon. Akinlolu Adeyemi, Majority Leader, Osun House of Assembly, “the probe needs to be carefully handled” asserting that, “it must be done in such a way as to give power supply to the people at the end of the day.”

He said, “if the essence of the probe is to victimise the ex-president, it is worthless”, as according to him, “sending Obasanjo to prison would not translate to energy in Nigeria.”