₦airaland Forum

Erstwhile President and former Head of state, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, has held liable the administrations which succeeded him, as being responsible for the comatose state of the power sector.

Obasanjo was speaking about his first time as leader of Nigeria, when he served as Military Head of state between 1976 and 1979. According to him, the administrations of Maj-Gen Muhammadu Buhari, Shehu Shagari, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, Ernest Shonekan, Sani Abacha and Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, did little to improve power in Nigeria.

The former President made the comments in Abeokuta, at a programme tagged ‘First Green Legacy Moment with Chief Olusegun Obasanjo on Leadership and Human Security in Africa’, where he said that leaders in the country lack the political will to tackle national challenges.

He said, “Part of our problems is lack of political will on the part of the leaders. What does a leader understands about development? Any leader worth his salt should know that power is very important. It is the driver of all developments, be it social, economic, and even political. When I was military head of state, I developed the Jebba Dam, I developed Shiroro, I started Egbin. (Ex-President Shehu)Shagari came and completed Egbin and commissioned Jebba and Shiroro.”

“Between Shagari in 1983, until I came back in 1999, there was no single dime invested in power generation. If anything, the ones that were there were allowed to go down. A country like Nigeria must be adding not less than 2,000 megawatts every year if we are to be moving on the path of development,” Obasanjo added.

He also referred back to Bola Ige, who was the first Minister of Power in his second coming as a civilian President. Obasanjo revealed that the late Ige mat a lot of challenges in the power sector, despite his attempts to fix the sector.

He said, “If you will remember, when I came back in 1999, my first Minister of Power was late Bola Ige. I won’t say Bola didn’t know what he was doing and he said publicly that he would fix the power problems in six months. After one year, Bola with his capacity couldn’t fathom what was wrong with power. It was riddled with corruption. Then we had no money. People have forgotten that in 1999/2000, the price of crude oil was US $9 per barrel. So, I wanted the oil companies, Mobil, Total and they wouldn’t go.”

“When we started having money, we started the National Integrated Power Plant. When we said the money we had should be invested in power, my successor didn’t understand; he stopped it. If for almost 20 years we did not achieve anything in power generation, then we may not be able to get it again.”

Furthermore, Obasanjo lamented the fact that Nigeria with an estimated population of over 180 million people, could not generate 4,000 megawatts, while South Africa, despite it’s population of 55 million people, manages to generate 45,000 megawatts.

“For us to say that we are industrialising country, we must be generating much more than what South Africa is generating, say 100,000 megawatts. What year will Nigeria get there if we are adding 2,000 megawatts each year? For us to get to 100,000 mega watts, I leave the mathematics to you. It sounds very discouraging but that is the reality.”


http://ynaija.com/obasanjo-blames-babangida-abacha-buhari-others-for-power-sector-decay/

According to him, the administrations of Maj-Gen Muhammadu Buhari, Shehu Shagari, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, Ernest Shonekan, Sani Abacha and Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, did little to improve power in Nigeria.

gboss4sure:
APC and Buhari supporters will never appear on this thread because Obasanjo never mention Goodluck Jonathan. Now that he has mentioned Buhari am sure they are been briefed on the insult to use on OBJ in other to derail this thread.

OBJ was referring to the power sector failure in his period and passing the buck to administrations before him to avoid taking all the blames.

OBJ failed. Period. No need to trade unverifiable blames.

Was GEJ president before OBJ? GEJ was trekking between UniPort and Otueke before 1999.

TANoids level of reasoning....

GMB 2015 on Course

LRNZH:
OBJ was referring to te failure in his period and passing the buck to administrations before him to avoid taking all the blames.

OBJ failed period. No need to trade unverifiable blames.

Was GEJ president before OBJ? GEJ was trekking between UniPort and Otueke before 1999.

TANoids level o reasoning....

GMB 2015 on Course