“$16bn power sector expenditure”: Information management mischief that escaped, By Sufuyan Ojeifo

Former Minister of Power and ex-governor of Cross River State, Senator Liyel Imoke, recently, at the 8th Annual Conference of the Guild of Corporate Online Publishers (GOCOP) in Lokoja, Kogi State, revisited the issue of the so-called $16 billion expenditure on the power sector under the President Olusegun Obasanjo administration. Liyel discharged his role as a keynoter at the confab where he spoke on the theme: “Nigeria: Tackling insecurity, power deficit, and transitioning to digital economy.”

He took the opportunity of the platform to make clarifications about the controversial expenditure of $16 billion allegedly by the Obasanjo administration in which he served as minister of power and chairman of the Power Sector Technical Board. Imoke declared on the occasion that the alleged expenditure of the whopping $16 billion was surreal. According to him, “It never happened.”

But unfortunately, the entire saga that bludgeoned its way into the consciousness of Nigerians and members of the international community as well as badgered the Obasanjo administration and its officials conspired with the tension of goals and objectives of a probe foisted on the nation by the House of Representatives under Speaker Dimeji Bankole to dilate the well-intentioned power sector reform.

Imoke specifically pointed the finger at the probe as constituting the notorious undue delay in the implementation of the power sector reforms. According to him: “The power sector probe took about two years. The delay led to huge cost overruns; doubling costs of various contracts awarded during my tenure. Several of these projects were delayed in completion. As we speak, we still have several IPP projects that are ongoing.” Now consider the conclusion of the whole matter that undergirded the wild goose chase as couched in Imoke’s words: “At the end of the probe, they found out that there was no missing $16b, but the alleged expenditure of the phantom $16b had been used as a political tool to criticize those of us in government.”

Significantly, Imoke confidently implicated inadequate information as the trigger of the allegation. He validated this claim by asserting that on his watch as minister of power, the actual spending on the power sector was between $2 billion and $3 billion, much of which, according to him went to the original electric manufacturers. The former minister sounded convincing as he spoke to the issue.

THE CONCLAVE reported the keynote, as delivered by Imoke, extensively on Saturday, October 5, 2024. The report generated some interest in the public domain. Someone who claimed to be in the know of how the information mismanagement escaped told THE CONCLAVE on phone that the $16 billion referenced in the House Committee probe was a mischief that escaped from the Media Office of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Dimeji Bankole. The caller, who also claimed to have worked in the Office of the Speaker, told this newspaper that the error issued from the pen of the Media Adviser to the Speaker, Mr Kayode Odunaro, who wrote $16 billion instead of $6 billion.

Immediately the press release went out, it became difficult to recall. The news spread like a wild harmattan fire. The humongous nature of the alleged expenditure was salacious in the context of the serial power outages and blackouts that characterized the power sector. The Obasanjo administration lost its gravitas instantly and its moral high ground on account of the allegation came under scrutiny as pertinent questions were being asked. Obasanjo had left office as president when the House of Representatives instituted the probe into the power sector expenditure. President Umaru Yar’Adua was in the saddle at that intersection.

THE CONCLAVE learnt that Obasanjo was livid with anger. He felt thoroughly embarrassed and largely unhappy that the House of Representatives under Dimeji Bankole, an Abeokuta man, would be out to rubbish his record of distinguished service to the nation. Obasanjo, being human, was not constrained or careful to interpret the probe of the power sector under his administration as an orchestrated local Abeokuta politics to disparage his persona and record of distinguished national service.

This much was said to have come to the fore at the wedding of Obasanjo’s son, Major Adeboye Obasanjo to Daisy Nyada in Abeokuta. A source who claimed to be in the know of the development told THE CONCLAVE that when Dimeji Bankole got to the event and made to greet Obasanjo, the former president snubbed him. Otunba Gbenga Daniel, who was with Obasanjo was said to have adverted the attention of Obasanjo to Dimeji Bankole’s greetings by saying “Baba, your son is greeting you.” Obasanjo was said to have replied Gbenga Daniel that he was not a father of a bastard, in apparent reference to Dimeji Bankole. Trust Obasanjo: he can be foul-mouthed and abusive when angry.

The former president, according to the narrative by the source, opened up by accusing Dimeji Bankole as having instigated an agenda to disparage him and his administration through what he called the unconscionable power sector probe. The Ebora of Owu pointedly told Dimeji Bankole that the conspiracy between him and his father, Chief Alani Bankole (with whom he had some rivalry) to undermine his position as former president would fall through. Meantime, as the face-off was going on, the source said that the chairman of the House Committee that probed the power sector expenditure, Hon Ndudi Elumelu, was approaching the location where Dimeji Bankole and Gbenga Daniel were with Obasanjo, but that on perceiving the rising tension and the unfriendly responses to Dimeji Bankole’s greetings, he (Elumelu) beat a hasty retreat.

While in office as Speaker, at the intersection that the information mismanagement escaped, no writ-large action was taken to cure the mischief. The office of the Speaker did not take steps to discipline his aide[s] who issued the press release containing the significant factual error that caused a collateral damage to the acclaimed integrity profile of the Obasanjo administration. That could have been considered by Obasanjo as Dimeji Bankole’s acquiescence in the phantasmagoric $16 billion alleged power sector expenditure, which the opposition easily latched on to negatively profile the administration as corrupt. Some persons in the other camp criticized the power sector reform/expenditure as a “white elephant” of sorts.

It was good that Imoke revisited the issue at the GOCOP confab in Lokoja. A fresh, progressive, incisive and restituting conversation could be started to contextualize the facts with a view to thrashing the fiction into the dustbin of history such and so that posterity will judge the administration of Obasanjo kindly on the issue of $16 billion power sector funding that never happened.

· Sufuyan Ojeifo is the publisher of THE CONCLAVE online newspaper.