•VON boss, Okechukwu, Omokri,
Fani-Kayode fire salvoes •Probe $16b power spending — CNPP, SERAP, AFRICMIL
ABUJA—Strong evocations of political indiscretion overflowed yesterday as
supporters of President Muhammadu Buhari and former president, Chief Olusegun
Obasanjo took positions against one another.
Supporters of the incumbent and
former president spoke as the House of Representatives distanced itself from
President Buhari’s assertions of indolence by legislators, saying the President
only asserted his opinion.
However, stakeholders in labour and civil society
welcomed the face-off between the two generals, saying it could bring about the
much-needed probity and accountability in the power sector.
Also, the
Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, (SERAP) on its part, urged
President Buhari to refer the allegations of mismanagement of fund meant for
the power sector to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, and the
Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC, for
further investigation Spokesmen of the two major parties, the All Progressives
Congress, APC, and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, distanced themselves from
the controversy sparked after President Buhari alleged that a former president
had spent $16 billion on power with nothing to show for it.
Dr. Obasanjo, under
whom the country’s power sector reforms and National Integrated Power Project,
NIPP, scheme were initiated immediately fired back, charging Buhari to read his
explanations from his book, My Watch and if not, have his aides read it and
break it down for him in a language he could understand.
Okechukwu, Omokri,
Fani-Kayode fire salvoes Among those who reacted yesterday were the Conference
of Nigerian Political Parties, CNPP, Mr. Reno Omokiri, who served as a
presidential aide in the Goodluck Jonathan presidency, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode,
who served as campaign spokesman to the Jonathan 2015 Presidential Campaign,
Mr. Osita Okechukwu, Director-General of the Voice of Nigeria, VON, Mr. Peter
Esele and Comrade Issa Aremu, both labour leaders.
In his reaction to the
development yesterday, Omokri in a tweet flayed President Buhari for being
ignorant of the facts and being ungrateful. He said: “Buhari is ungrateful for
saying he is paying Obasanjo’s debt. Obasanjo did not spend $16 billion on power.
Obasanjo actually paid ALL our foreign debt and left a total reserve of $67
billion. It’s Buhari who has borrowed more in three years than PDP borrowed in
16 years.” He also flayed President Buhari for praising late Head of State,
General Sani Abacha, saying it ridicules the President’s anti-corruption war.
“What type of anti-corruption crusader chooses Abacha, a proven thief, as his
mentor? When I schooled in England, my university had a module on Abacha’s
thievery.
This is the man Buhari aspires to be? The man who exiled Tinubu and
NADECO!” Fani-Kayode, on his part, also questioned Buhari’s moral basis of
throwing issues at Obasanjo, saying: “The greatest mistake President Obasanjo
made was not to prosecute and jail President Buhari over PTF funds,” he said.
“I saw the report, and it was shocking. Obasanjo summoned him and showed him
the damning report. Sadly Obasanjo let him off the hook.” Abacha had appointed
Buhari as chairman of the Petroleum (Special) Trust Fund (PTF), in 1994, but
the agency was disbanded by Obasanjo after he became president in 1999.
Okechukwu in his response to the face-off yesterday said: “Let me state that
President Muhammadu Buhari, from my knowledge of him, adheres strictly to the
best military tradition of esprit de corps, meaning that he has tremendous
respect for his colleagues. “But when ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo, a man he
has tremendous respect for, for no just cause, descends into the arena,
serially splashing mud on him; naturally being human, he has no option but to
open his underbelly.
For in our local parlance it is only a tree that they want
to hew down which stood still. “This reminds one that if it was an extrovert
like Rt. Hon. Chuba Okadigbo of blessed memory, Obasanjo will by now be
explaining to the world the gulf between his penury in 1999 and the stupendous
wealth post-presidential villa.” Probe $16b power spending — CNPP, SERAP,
AFRICMIL The CNPP on its part has urged President Buhari not to stop at
throwing jibes at Obasanjo as he did yesterday, but go a step further by
instituting a public probe of the power spending and other expenditure during
Obasanjo’s tenure. CNPP Secretary-General, Chief Willy Ezugwu in a statement
yesterday said: “We expect President Buhari to institute a full-scale public
inquiry into the spending on power by former President Obasanjo’s
administration.
This will give teeth to his anti-graft war. “His
administration’s concentration on one particular administration, while leaving
the ones before the former President Goodluck Jonathan government has been the
reason for our doubt of the sincerity in his war against corruption. “Although
President Buhari did not mention any name, he was widely quoted as saying that
a former Nigerian leader was bragging at a time that his administration spent
$16bn on the power sector, yet there was nothing to show for it.
“Therefore, if
the President knows what we don’t know, it is time to prove to Nigerians that
he is really fighting corruption. We now call on President Muhammadu Buhari to
immediately begin the probe and assure all Nigerians that he is not selective
on his anti-graft war.
“Mr. President must equally probe members of his cabinet
fingered in corruption cases to make his war on corruption total,” the CNPP
said. SERAP on its part in a statement by its executive director Adetokunbo
Mumuni, called for the probe of the N11 trillion allegedly lost to corruption
in the power sector since 1999.
“We welcome the focus by President Buhari on
the massive allegations of corruption and mismanagement in the power sector and
urge him to expand his searchlight beyond the Obasanjo government by ensuring
accountability and full recovery of the over N11 trillion squandered by the
three administrations.
“It is only by pursuing all the allegations and taking the
evidence before the court that the truth will be revealed and justice best
served. This is the only way to conclusively address the systemic corruption in
the power sector and an entrenched culture of impunity of perpetrators.” “By
immediately pursuing justice and recovery of any stolen assets in the power
sector, the Buhari government would be acting in the public interest, and
consistent with the spirit and letter of the constitution, particularly Chapter
2 of the 1999 Constitution dealing with Fundamental Objectives and Directive
Principles of State Policy, and providing that high-level public officials have
a clear obligation to “eradicate all corrupt practices and abuse of power.”
Meanwhile, a civil society organisation, the African Centre for Media and
Information Literacy (AFRICMIL), has called for a full scale and wide-ranging
investigations” into the administrations of all former Nigerian leaders and
bring those who breached public trust to account.
The organisation in a public
statement signed by its coordinator, Chido Onumah, and made available to
Vanguard on Wednesday, argued that the federal government had a duty to probe
all grey areas in every administration beyond the alleged $16 billion power
sector expenditure. It will be recalled that while addressing his supporters on
Tuesday, President Buhari said that former president Obasanjo had questions to
answer for spending $16 billion on power without commensurate result.
President
Obasanjo promptly responded by accusing Buhari of being ignorant of the facts
on the matter. He also said he was ready to be probed again on the matter,
which was first investigated by the House of Representatives. Onumah said:
“This challenge the former president throws at the federal government presents
a unique opportunity for us as a country to revisit our past and bring all our
past leaders to account.
Reopening the power sector expenditure probe would be
a step in the right direction for the country, but that should be the
beginning”. A welcome face-off, says Issa Aremu Aremu, a member of the Nigerian
Labour Congress, National Executive Committee (NEC), on his part described the
faceoff as a welcome development for the polity. “My take is that it is
remarkably healthy that the political contestation between Buhari and Obasanjo
now touches on a critical issue such as accountability on power supply in the
country.
“It is good for our democracy if disagreements among politicians are
based on policy issues, not personal diatribes. OBJ should answer the question
Buhari asked which indeed all Nigerians are asking; where is power supply
despite the amount that has been spent?. I think it is uncharitable and
arrogantly cheeky for OBJ to refer Nigerians to read his book on how he was
acquitted by the 7th assembly on the accusation of corruption and profligacy.
“The truth is that many Nigerians lack electricity to read his so-called book,
My Watch, whether he spent One kobo or $6 billion or $16billion as alleged. OBJ
should demonstrate statesmanship and express regret that he met Nigeria in 1999
in darkness and left the nation in perpetual power failure in 2007.
It is also
unacceptable for OBJ to put the blame on late Yar Adua for not pushing power
projects to the logical conclusion. “Between Buhari and OBJ diatribes on the
power supply the point cannot be overstated that Nigeria is still miserably
energy poor compared to South Africa and even Ghana. There can be no
industrialization without electrification. Nigeria should stop any action plan
that will further give monies to non-performing Privatized electricity
distribution companies (Discos) in Nigeria. The government should massively
invest in the energy mix of hydro, solar and nuclear to drive
Industrialization.
This task of nation building and wealth generation calls for
cooperation and seriousness on the part of all leaders and all Nigerians.”
Also, Peter Esele, former President of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) and also
former President of Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of
Nigeria (PENGASSAN) said: ‘’I think the bottom line is that if Buhari feels
Obasanjo spent N416 billion for power that is unaccounted for, it is Buhari’s
responsibility to now set up a probe and ask how that money was expended.
Was
it actually $16 billion? We need to get to the bottom of this figure; some
figure say $16 billion, some say $12bn, some say $10 billion. We need to get to
the bottom of this figure and that will also now set up a standard for us. “One
thing that is very clear from all of this is that our system is not working; our
procurement policies are not working; it also means there is no transparency.
If there was transparency, it would have been easy for Nigerians to know how
much was expended in the process of generating power.
“It is not rocket
science. Every megawatt cost about a million dollars, so if you are talking
about $16 billion; when you divide it by $1 million, you would know that you
would have generated over 10,000 megawatts.
Even if you now add the fact that
it is Nigeria, so many things can happen, but the international standard of
generating one megawatt of electricity is $1 million. Buhari on his own — Reps
Meanwhile, the House of Representatives yesterday distanced itself from
President Buhari’s charge of indolence saying the president spoke his personal opinion
on the issue. Briefing journalists yesterday after plenary, House spokesman,
Abdulrazaq Namdas said “as for the president’s remarks, we believe that the
president can hold an opinion as regards the performance of individual members
of the National Assembly.
“In fact, our constituents have been doing just that,
members of the National Assembly have been replaced by their constituents as a
result of such opinions. “However, we want to believe that the President was
not questioning the role of the National Assembly as an institution of
democracy because that will be a worrying sign that our democracy will be in
peril but we believe he was not referring to that. The House spokesman also
used the opportunity to explain the fact that the National Assembly did not
deliberately frustrate the 2018 budget. “We want to state again clearly that on
the issue of budget, the 2017 budget was meant to run for 12 months. I want to
tell you that we have not short-changed anybody.
If we had passed this budget
earlier, I could tell you that the level of performance will not be here at the
moment. “The budget is a law, even this 2018 budget that was just passed by the
National Assembly, we stated clearly that it should run for 12 months. So even
if we had passed the budget earlier than now, it could not take effect until we
mend that aspect of the 12 calendar months.” He said that whatever glory the
President takes from the high appropriation to capital projects must be shared
with the legislators who he said approved the budget.
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