President Muhammadu Buhari has queried the spending of $16 billion on power by past administration with nothing to show for it.
Buhari said a former head of state even bragged that he spent more than 15 billion American dollars on power.
“Where is the power? Where is the power? And now, we have to pay the debts,” the president said.
He stated this while hosting the Buhari Support Organization at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa yesterday.
The group, led by the Comptroller-General of the Nigerian Customs Service, Hammed Ali is championing the president’s re-election campaign.
Buhari said the money was spent between 1999 and 2014, a period that spanned former presidents Olusegun Olusegun and Goodluck Jonathan’s era.
However, in an immediate response that suggested Buhari’s comment was directed at him, former president Olusegun Obasanjo said no money for power was mismanaged and that he was ready for probe.
The House of Representatives had in 2008 described the $16 billion spent on power by Obasanjo’s government as a colossal waste, blaming it on “poor budget planning and a lack of proper oversight by relevant bodies.”
President Buhari said: “I’ve to repeat what I want the public to know here. Some of you may not have heard it either there is no power in your place or even in the television, I said and I challenge anybody to check from Europe, Asia and America. Between 1999 and 2014, Nigeria was getting 2.1 million barrels per day and average cost of $100 per barrel. It went up to $143.
“So, Nigeria was earning 2.1m million times 100 time 16 years. When we came, it collapsed to $37-38 and it was oscillating between 40 and 54 sometimes.
“I went to the Governor of Central Bank, thank goodness I did not sack him, and he is still there. I went with my cap in my hand and say oya. He said there was no savings, only debt.
“And you know more than I do. The conditions of the roads and some of them were not repaired since PTF days. No matter what opinion you’ve about Abacha, I agreed to work with him and the PTF road we did from here to Port harcourt, to Onitsha, to Benin and so on on top of other things in the institution, education, medical care and so on. You know the rail was killed.”
The president said over N1.3 trillion capital project budget he presented to the National Assembly was the highest.
“Let anybody come and confront me publicly in the National Assembly. What have they been doing? Some of them have been there for 10 years. What have they been doing?” he asked.
The president also replied those accusing him of poor performance, saying “this is a terrible time.”
He said: “... I said it about 8 years ago that we’ve no other country but Nigeria, we should remain here and salvage it together no matter what you have outside. Now we get some of the people with houses here and maybe in Abuja or somewhere in America and Europe, they swear to God that it doesn’t belong to them. But their accounts, through the banks, through their companies, it is their own. But they say it’s not their own.
“This is a terrible time and the people are saying what are we doing? Why can’t you lock them up? And again, I went on by telling them what I said when I was in uniform, younger and rather ruthless. From the president (Shehu Shagari) downwards, I locked them up in Kirikiri. I said you’re guilty except you prove yourselves innocent. I myself was locked up, and those who misappropriated public funds were given back what they’ve taken away. Who did anything about it? Then I decided to come and put agbada.”
Buhari said his administration would try to bring Nigeria to her senses, saying God has given the nation everything in terms of human and material resources.
The president urged Nigerians to keep praying to God to give them people of conscience as leaders at all levels.
He said members of the Buhari Support Organization were expecting their rewards from God as nobody was paying them for their activities, noting that they were working for Nigeria’s future and that of their children and grandchildren.
Buhari stated: “Sometimes, I wonder why those who can afford to educate their children are to go overseas and train in America, Europe, Asia and so on. I wonder want kind of Nigerians they want their children to come and work with.
“I think there’s a lot of lack of imagination because if you’re fighting for the country, you shouldn’t be misappropriating or misapplying the fund the way people do.”
Am ready for probe – Obasanjo
In his reaction Obasanjo, declared that he was prepared to face any inquiry to clear his name on the controversial $16b Power Project executed during his administration.
In a statement by his Media Aide, Kehinde Akinyemi in Abeokuta, yesterday, he said Buhari made his remark “apparently without correct information and based on ignorance.
“We believe that the President was re-echoing the unsubstantiated allegation against Chief Obasanjo by his own predecessor but one.
“While it is doubtful that a President with proper understanding of the issue would utter such, it should be pointed out that records from the National Assembly had exculpate President Obasanjo of any wrong-doing concerning the power sector and has proved the allegations as false.
“For the records, Chief Obasanjo has addressed the issues of the power sector and the allegations against him on many occasions and platforms, including in his widely publicised book, My Watch in which he exhaustively stated the facts and reproduced various reports by both the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), which conducted a clinical investigation into the allegations against Chief Obasanjo, and the Ad-Hoc Committee on the Review of the Recommendations in the Report of the Committee on Power on the Investigation into how the Huge Sums Of Money was Spent on Power Generation, Transmission And Distribution between June 1999 and May 2007 without Commensurate Result.
“We recommend that the President and his co-travellers should read Chapters 41, 42, 43 and 47 of My Watch for Chief Obasanjo’s insights and perspectives on the power sector and indeed what transpired when the allegation of $16 billion on power projects was previously made. If he cannot read the three-volume book, he should detail his aides to do so and summarise the chapters in a language that he will easily understand.
“In the same statement credited to the President, it was alleged that there was some bragging by Chief Obasanjo over $16 billion spent on power. To inform the uninformed, the so-called $16 billion power expenditure was an allegation against Chief Obasanjo’s administration and not his claim.
“The President also queried where the power generated is. The answer is simple: The power is in the seven National Integrated Power Projects and eighteen gas turbines that Chief Obasanjo’s successor who originally made the allegation of $16 billion did not clear from the ports for over a year and the civil works done on the sites.
“Chief Obasanjo challenges, and in fact encourages, anybody to set up another enquiry if in doubt and unsatisfied with the EFCC report and that of the Hon. Aminu Tambuwal-led ad-hoc committee.”