₦airaland Forum

Good news

Hope the money would be use judiciously on national power generation and transmission..

Na road we go use am build that over 3 trillion o, no waste am

let's see if our exchange rate would improve

DEROXMAN:
Na road we go use am build that over 3 trillion o, no waste am

Nigeria didn't win $2.35 Billion, the company said Nigeria and was demanding that amount in damages for a contract that the president then said he didn't give approval for.

So what we get will be the legal charges of about $11 million which are to reimburse us for the amount we spent on lawyers

My post from March 20th this year.

Presidential travels and electricity projects.

I know it's just politics, but some people were saying that ordinary Nigerians do not benefit anything from foreign trips by the president and other leaders.

I said that it's very obvious that this is a lie because almost all the big projects that have been done have come about because of these foreign trips and everybody can see them. I listed some of these projects like the Lagos-Abuja rail line, the Lagos-Ibadan rail line, the railway university, the rail coach and wagon factory, the trains for the Blue Line and Red Line railways, the Super Tucano attack aircraft, etc.

However, despite best efforts, it's not all the plans that succeed. This post is about a very good plan that Muhammadu Buhari had, but which failed because of the Nigerian situation.

Shagari and Mambilla

President Shehu Shagari planned a lot of hydro-electric projects in his 4 years in power, but unfortunately he could not complete any of them. The biggest of these projects was the Mambilla Power Project.

The Mambilla Power Project was designed to be the biggest power plant in Nigeria. It was to provide 3,050 megawatts of power. For comparison, the Egbin power plant in Lagos, which is currently the biggest power plant in Nigeria and which burns gas, has a capacity of 1,320 megawatts.

The Mambilla Power Project consists of 4 dams and 2 underground power stations across the Donga River in Taraba State (near the border between Nigeria and Cameroon).

President Shagari's administration conceived of the project, but Nigeria ran into a financial crisis in 1982 and the government was overthrown on December 31st, 1983. The project was therefore abandoned.


Importance of the Mambilla Project

Nigeria depended on hydro power plants when I was a kid (that's why people often spoke about "no water in the dam", but we have since transitioned to thermal power plants, specifically gas powered plants.

The argument for using gas was that Nigeria had the 3rd largest gas reserves in the world and therefore, we might as well use it.

However, gas is expensive.

That's one of the reasons why the Mambilla Project is important to me. It helps us balance our energy mix.

Gas is expensive and you run into trouble when you can't pay for it. Furthermore, there are strange people in Nigeria who actually go and cut gas pipelines and besides, some of those pipelines are not well maintained.

You don't need to worry about buying gas when you are using a hudro plant. God provides the river water. However, you still need to pay workers and maintain equipment, so money is important.

Which brings me to my important point. The Mambilla project is not the solution to the power crisis in Nigeria. The solution is to remove subsidy. If you don't remove subsidy and charge a cost reflective tariff, then you'll still have problems maintaining equipment, paying workers and buying equipment at the Mambilla Power Plant.

However, the addition of Mambilla's 3,050 megawatts will help significantly.


Muhammadu Buhari and Mambilla

Nigeria is a poor country and this fact has affected the ability of many governments to deliver services to the people. However, the Buhari Administration did not allow this to disturb them. The administration borrowed a lot of money and used the loans to provide projects and services to Nigerians.

So President Buhari travelled to China and reached a deal with the Chinese that the China Export Bank will provide 85% of the funds to complete the Mambilla Power Project and the Nigerian Government would provide 15%. Obviously the construction work would be done by Chinese companies. That's when the Nigerian factor came in.


Obasanjo and Mambilla

Dr Olu Agunloye was a protege of Professor Wole Soyinka. There were many former students of Professor Soyinka (and other young people that admired him) who collaborated with him after they graduated from school.

Professor Soyinka pitched the idea of a Federal Road Safety Corps to President Babangida and Babangida made him the first chairman of the corps (this was in 1988). Dr Olu Agunloye was made the first corp marshal (chief executive) of the corps.

Dr Agunloye had problems with the Abacha Regime (probably because Professor Soyinka was campaigning against the regime) and he was removed from the FRSC and harassed.

President Obasanjo made Dr Agunloye his personal assistant on power. He later made him the minister of state for defence (Navy) and then the minister of power and steel.

Dr Agunloye took a proposal to President Obasanjo when he was minister of power and steel. It was from a company that wanted to partner with the Federal Government to complete the Mambilla Power Project.

President Obasanjo told Dr Agunloye to bring the proposal to the Federal Executive Council for approval.

President Obasanjo said that Dr Agunloye never brought the proposal to FEC.

However, when the Buhari Administration wanted to partner with the Chinese to complete the project, they discovered that they were sued by a company that claimed that the Federal Government breached an agreement to complete the project. The company claimed that President Obasanjo and Dr Agunloye agreed that it would complete the project, but the FG reneged on the agreement. The company was thus suing the Federal Government for compensation.

President Obasanjo said that he never approved any such agreement and that his last instruction to was that Dr Agunloye should bring the proposal to the FEC.

The Mambilla Power Project has thus been grounded because of that dispute.

Indeed, the last national duty of President Buhari was to testify at the arbitration hearing in Paris over the dispute.

My post from January 19th, 2025.

OBJ had previously volunteered to testify.

Professor Wole Soyinka brought the idea of creating a road safety corp. He had been inspired by Dr Taiye Solarin, who had organised students to put in place road safety measures on an expressway on which many students had been killed by cars.

President Ibrahim Babangida bought the idea and made Professor Soyinka the first chairman of the Federal Road Safety Corps.

People initially hailed the agency. They said that Professor Soyinka brought a lot of his boys into the agency, they were graduates and they could not be bribed.

One of the people that Professor Soyinka brought into the FRSC was one of his proteges, Dr Olu Agunloye and he became the Corps Marshal (chief executive) of the agency.

Dr Agunloye was corps marshal from 1988 till 1994 when he began having problems with General Sani Abacha (I can't remember if it was because his memtor, Wole Soyinka, had issues with Abacha). I believe Dr Agunloye was detained and accused of being involved in some kind of plot.

Anyway, Nigeria returned to civil rule and President Olusegun Obasanjo made Dr Agunloye his minister of state for defence (navy) and then minister for power and steel.

Now here's the relevant part.

The Mambilla Power Plant was planned in the late 1970s and early 1980s when we had oil money. It was supposed to be the biggest power plant in Nigeria. In fact, it is so big that it is supposed to solve all our power problems. Part of the dam was built during the Shagari era. Then Nigeria suffered a financial crisis and the project was abandoned.


A few years ago President Olusegun Obasanjo said that Dr Olu Agunloye brought a proposal by a foreign company to build and operate the power plant (the proposal had earlier been brought by Agunloye's predecessor), but Obasanjo told him to bring the proposal to the Federal Executive Council meeting and also bring a comparison between the Mambilla project (which is a hydro project) and a coal fired power plant.

President Obasanjo said that Dr Agunloye never brought the proposal to any FEC meeting and so it was never approved. He said that he is ready to testify against Dr Agunloye anywhere and any time.

Dr Agunloye claimed that Obasanjo approved the deal.

---

The problem is that Nigeria seriously needs power from that dam, so at various times Yar'Adua, Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari had tried to resume the project, but the company, Sunrise, had sued and demanded compensation. They claimed that Obasanjo cancelled their contract, but Obasanjo said that neither he nor FEC approved any contract.

In fact, the Buhari Administration had reached a deal for the Chinese to fund the construction of the dam and power plant, but Sunrise blocked it.

The Buhari Administration (led by Professor Osinbajo) suspected that there were some kind of corrupt practices behind the whole thing, so it got the EFCC to investigate. The CEO of Sunrise and Dr Agunloye were being tried in Nigeria for corruption.

Dr Agunloye was granted bail and well. . .


There is an arbitration hearing in Paris over this matter and I guess the problem is that some of President Muhammadu Buhari's aides posted pictures of him visiting the Emir of Daura and then going to the airport to travel to France. That's what caused the problem.

You see, the arbitration hearings are meant to be confidential/secret, but Peoples Gazette saw those photos, found out what was happening and published a weird story that the Bola Tinubu led Federal Government had dragged President Buhari to the arbitration hearing. Can you imagine how that sounds?? (You already know how I feel about Peoples Gazette and Sahara Reporters).

The truth is that the people that are testifying against Sunrise/Olu Agunloye (people like Obasanjo, Buhari and Fashola) are very happy to do so (they don't have to be dragged) and in fact, President Obasanjo issued a public statement in 2023 in which he offered to testify anywhere and any time in support of the Federal Government.

Gbegiri politics will be the downfall of this administration

This news has refused to trend on nairaland as usual because it is a positive news. If Nigeria had lost the case yesterday, at least ten threads with different variants would have been moved to the front page by the Obidient moderators of the forum.

Anyway, congratulations to Nigeria. This is another bad legacy from the PDP administration that Tinubu had to deal with. I am glad Nigeria came out victorious. Now that the sunrise bottleneck has been solved, the Tinubu administration should quickly finalize the contract with the Chinese and let's start the building the Mambila power dam that has the capacity of generating about 3000 megawatt of electricity. This project will be a major game changer for our electricity generation.

Nigeria has won a major arbitration dispute against a firm, Sunrise Power and Transmission Company Limited over the controversial Mambilla Hydropower Project, with the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in Paris ruling in favour of the Federal Government.
If it were to be handled by Nigerian judge,the judge will connive with the company for a rewarding kickbacks to send his children to study abroad,so we are now celebrating justice from the off- shore of the country,Where are the Nigerian judges,just examine this ruling in the light of Nigeria's justice system.

Ola9ja23:
Good news

Hope the money would be use judiciously on national power generation and transmission..

Which money?

Are you sure you read the article?

One of Buhari’s very last official trips before he died was travelling to testify as a witness in this case for Nigeria. Not forgetting the landmark judgement he also got against P&ID. Posterity will continue to be kind to Muhammadu Buhari.

Good news here!!
Kudos to Baba Obasanjo for being a true patriot on this matter
Baba remains the best we've had as leader in our present democratic journey and even the country as a whole
One wonders why some folks hate him though

Another sad day for Obidients and other enemies of Nigeria

Instead of looking for means to legitimately make money, the useless company is looking for means to earn $2.35 billion.

Do they even know the kind of impact that money will make in Nigeria? Yet, one useless company wants to earn it in damages. Idiots are always busy trying to reap where they didn't sow.

Looted already by sniffer. Nigerians will never benefit from it. APShit must be kicked out my all means.

Great news, let's see how much more it boosts the economy!

Technical Writer

Government will still retract this statement. The original has not being heard. Only the $200m case. If this has not being bungled, we would have added 5000mw.

See how dry a a positive thread is.

Many Nigerians don turn to village people wishing their country bad.

AMINDA:
One of Buhari’s very last official trips before he died was travelling to testify as a witness in this case for Nigeria. Not forgetting the landmark judgement he also got against P&ID. Posterity will continue to be kind to Muhammadu Buhari.

Sai Mai Gaskiya.
No cutting corners, no stealing, impeccable reputation.

iwaeda:
Government will still retract this statement. The original has not being heard. Only the $200m case. If this has not being bungled, we would have added 5000mw.

You should get someone to break down the post into your kindergarten level so you can understand it.

You see why the military government looked like they performed better than this civilian governments, a project that was started in 2003 to add additional 3,000 mega watts to the national grid has not still been completed and they are hoping it will be completed in 2030, a child born in 2003 will be 27 years in 2030.

Atiku was part of that administration. How come a minister had no respect for Obasanjo and Atiku and unilaterally approved a contract so large?

Atiku, what do you know about this fraud?

PDP was a plague to this country. 🤦‍♂️
Never again!!!

Minister of Power and Steel, Olu Agunloye.

For the sake of clarification, Nigeria DID NOT WIN THE MONEY, Nigeria WON THE CASE. Thank you.

I

DEROXMAN:
Na road we go use am build that over 3 trillion o, no waste am

so u think say Nigeria win 3 trillion Naira?
Kai.. try go school

Ola9ja23:
Good news

Hope the money would be use judiciously on national power generation and transmission..

Chinese. Go school you refused. I they are not giving Nigeria thT money. It's just what Nigeria would have paid if the casecgo against Nigeria.
Obidients just like their master Gbajue

RichDad1:
PDP was a plague to this country. 🤦‍♂️
Never again!!!

Atiku wad in govt that time

Mynd44:
Nigeria didn't win $2.35 Billion, the company said Nigeria and was demanding that amount in damages for a contract that the president then said he didn't give approval for.

So what we get will be the legal charges of about $11 million which are to reimburse us for the amount we spent on lawyers

gbam!ure one of the few people that have sense on nairaland 90% others don't