Can we have this developmental stride on the front page please?

WITH preparations in top gear, and barring any last minute hitches, by February 2013, which is barely three months from now, the Aba Independent Power Plant (IPP) will come on stream with additional 140 megawatts of energy to give the decadent Aba a lifeline towards rejuvenation. The plant, which is the first of its kind in Nigeria, is coming at a time when the country is in the throes of epileptic power supply and darkness, occasioned by the failure of government to redeem the collapsed power sector after more than twelve years of wishy-washy policy somersaults.

The Aba plant is a trailblazer in the sense that it is wholly owned by a private indigenous company - Geometric Power Limited. From conception to design, funding and implementation, there is practically no government involvement, which is an essential requirement for independent power plant operation. That makes the plant a truly independent power plant. I have said it before that independent power plant, as the name implies, should be devoid of government involvement for it to work. It is important at this stage that Geometric and its partners in this very important project spare nothing to ensure that the objectives of this power plant are fully realised.

The history of the Aba power plant dates back to 2004 following the visit of James Wolfenshon, who was then the president of the World Bank. Sir Wolfenshon visited Aba as part of the bank’s programme for Development Assistance to Africa. After assessing the industrial potential of Aba, he reportedly recommended the setting up of a power plant to boost the industrial potential of Aba. That was an excellent recommendation.

It is amazing, however, that whereas the then Olusegun Obasanjo administration accepted the recommendation; he instead decided to site the power plant in Abeokuta, which has no industrial potential like Aba. Obasanjo’s misconceived and unpatriotic decision left Aba to its fate. But as fate would have it, that was when Professor Bart Nnaji, the immediate past Minister of Power and former Presidential Adviser on Power came to the rescue.

Mrs. Ngozi-Okonjo Iweala, a Minister of Finance under Obasanjo and immediate past managing director of the World Bank, who accompanied Wolfenshon to the visit, was reportedly heart-broken to see that the debilitating power crisis in the country has paralysed the large army of small-scale manufacturers at the Ariaria Industrial Market, Aba, where assorted high quality shoes, handbags, belts, clothes and other items were produced and labeled “Made in Italy”, “Made in France”, as if nothing good could come from Nigeria! It is a spat on Nigeria. The manufacturers do that because they’re on their own without any form of official support or assistance or policy directive.

According to Okonjo-Iweala: “I informed Mr. Wolfenshon of a globally respected Nigerian professor of robotics in the United States, Bart Nnaji, who could build a power plant in this city to solve this severe problem”. She revealed that initially, Geometric wanted to build a power plant for only manufacturing firms who were experiencing acute shortage of electricity in Aba, famous for indigenous technology, but decided to include all categories of electricity users in Aba following the visit of Wolfenshon. That was the genesis of the Aba Power Plant.

Fired by a desire to revitalise the hitherto industrial city that could qualify as “The Taiwan of Nigeria”, Nnaji came to the scene with his Geometric Power Company, which he founded to generate and distribute electricity in Nigeria to international standards. The uniqueness of the company, apart from being the first indigenous power company in Nigeria, is its capacity to combine electricity generation with distribution. So far, Geometric has developed a 22-megawatt capacity power plant in Abuja, which has boosted electricity supply in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). The Aba Power Plant is a 1,000-megawatt capacity plant, strategically sited to re-energise the industrial city. The plant will deliver regular and affordable electricity directly to consumers. That would transform Aba industrially, economically and create massive employment to millions of idle hands.

Raising the funds needed to put up the power plant is not easy. With many Nigerian banks passing through hard times, sourcing the funds locally presents a problem. The financial outlay of about $500 million (about N78.5 billion) needed to execute the project would entail external borrowing. Foreign creditors need to support the project without wavering because there is no doubt that electricity is badly needed in Nigeria. Unfortunately, the policy inconsistency of government may create doubts in the minds of potential creditors.

For instance, the uncertainty over the much-touted power reform programme of the Goodluck Jonathan administration and the controversies over the sale of the successor companies of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) paint negative picture of the power reform agenda of the government. Everyone is wondering what the government is up to. Is it really serious with the electricity programme? Notwithstanding all this, the Aba Power Plant is on a different pathway outside government’s interference. And, that is why it is making progress irrespective of the foot-dragging in government power programme.

Over the decades, Aba has remained, perhaps, the most vibrant industrial city in Nigeria, where thousands of small to medium scale industrial enterprises using indigenous technology thrived. Before independence in 1960, Aba was the cynosure of Eastern Nigeria, a centre of industrial manufacturing. Millions of people flocked to Aba and the city boomed in prosperity. Not even the Civil War affected Aba’s industrial capability. As a matter of fact, the industrial manufacturing thrived throughout the period of the Civil War.

At the end of the war, Aba returned to its full industrial activity. Things remained stable to the late 1980s when the situation took a dramatic downturn and the city began to wane under the failure of successive administrations. The final death nail came with the present political dispensation that began in 2000 that paid lip-service to governance. The collapse of the electricity sub-sector and the decay of roads and other infrastructure that the Abia State government neglected threw Aba into the morass total decay. Thus, Aba fell from grace to grass. What would have served as a bastion of industrial development went into oblivion. Whether or not Aba will rise again is a matter of conjecture except with the inroad being made by Geometric to bring life back to the city.

The power plant may be one good thing that has happened to Aba since the end of the Civil War in 1970. Ever since then, every other thing in that city had been on a decline to the present day. According to the proprietors of the power plant, the plant was strategically located in Aba to serve as the first of such industry-centred independent power. “This is an integrated power project because it has a power plant and distribution network with sub-stations, power line, as well as gas pipeline all embedded in the project. Phase one of the project has 140 megawatts; phase two is 540 megawatts, which is to serve as additional unit to existing one while phase three is 100 megawatts, which will come later”. There is no doubt that with a functional power plant in place devoid of the unhealthy politics that shackles electricity in the country, Aba will have new life injected into it.

I want to stress that electricity is just one aspect of the infrastructure failure in Aba. The deplorable state of the roads is lamentable. It is an indictment on the two Orji administrations that have presided over Aba, indeed, the entire Abia State since 1999. Now that the electricity issue is being addressed, it is incumbent on the Abia State government to come up with a plan to rehabilitate Aba roads. This is to ensure a smooth movement of goods and services in the city. The industrial activities and commerce will be seriously hampered if there are no motorable roads in Aba.

Author of this article: By Luke Onyekakeyah
http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=105941%3Athe-revolutionary-aba-power-plant&catid=38%3Acolumnists&Itemid=615

Lets hope this takes off. The future in Aba, belongs to the small scale business men and women. A size able middle class is what will drive development over time.