In Broken Tongues of February 12, 2015, Amanze Obi touched on the raw issue of endorsement of presidential candidates by individuals, groups and organisations. But he brought the issue closer to my interest and concern when he made reference to the endorsement of President Goodluck Jonathan by the leadership of Ohanaeze Ndigbo.
It worries me that there are no known conditions upon which the support for Jonathan is based, thereby making cynics postulate that Igbo interests have not been cardinal to the pro-Jonathan elements. But the Igbo vote can never be for sale as long as some of us are still breathing and kicking. We all know that as a result of the posturing of these elements, the destiny of the people of the South East geopolitical zone and of the Igbo people elsewhere is being daily compromised on a grand scale. The impending tragedy is far beyond the imagination of most people.
One of the biggest investments in the whole of the South East is the integrated 141 Megawatt Aba Power Project built by Geometric Power Limited at the cost of well over $500 million. It has been completed, but cannot start commercial operations because the federal administration has been waging a most unconscionable war against it for purely the private interests of some people in government and their proxies who handed over electricity distribution in the entire geopolitical zone to a firm which both the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) and the National Council on Privatisation (NCP) say in an official report has neither the technical ability nor the financial muscle to run the business.
Professor Barth Nnaji, the erstwhile Minister of Power and world class academic who led the consortium that built the Aba Power Project, pays an average of $3.5 million every month to service the debt. Yet, Aba, the headquarters of indigenous technology in Nigeria, has no electricity, like the rest of the country. If the project, which has long attracted international interest, is frustrated by the federal government, how can international investors be convinced that Nigeria is ready for business? Anytime the Aba issue is tabled before Jonathan, he promises to set up a committee to resolve the matter. Still, nothing has come out of the promises. The supreme irony is that President Jonathan made electricity development the number one issue in his 2011 election manifesto.
The official strangulation of the Aba Power project is unfortunately only one in a series of steps which the administration has taken to compromise the destiny of the Igbo people. For example, a few months ago, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), chaired by the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, directed that the little quantity of natural gas made available to the South East be diverted to other parts of the country. ExxonMobil, in particular, which produces 400 million standard cubic feet (SCF) of gas from its offshore facility in Eastern Nigeria, but uses 100mscf of it at its plant in the same place, was compelled to divert it to Oben and different parts of the country.
This directive had grave implications. International firms like General Electric, the world’s biggest electric equipment manufacturer, which have been in negotiations with investors with a view to building power plants in the South East, was compelled to suspend negotiations because of the directive. The NNPC directive also negatively affected various power projects in the East, whether owned by the federal government or by the private sector. Insufficient gas supply is the greatest threat to the take-off and performance of power plants in the area, given that all the plants are thermal or gas-fired. Therefore, the order to stop supply by as much as 300mscf by ExxonMobil alone only exacerbated the situation.
It is difficult to understand why natural gas, which is produced mostly in the Eastern axis of Nigeria, is grossly insufficient in the area, and the little quantity available is now being taken away by an administration which is touted to be ours. We do not know what the people of the South East in particular have done to deserve this kind of total disregard for their collective interests and future. But as different analysts have pointed out over the period, the way some people in our place have gone about the campaign for the return of President Jonathan to office without conditions would only give rise to various cases of grave disregard for us.
It is instructive that the proposed second Niger Bridge is about only 15 metres longer than the Loko-Eweto Bridge in Benue State which the Federal Government is on the verge of completing. While the Loko-Eweto Bridge is costing N47 billion, N114.8 billion is budgeted for the second Niger Bridge! The reason for the wide disparity is that the second Niger Bridge which is going to be a private-public partnership and involves a mere N30 billion payment by the federal government, and huge payments by both the Anambra and Delta states governments, will have toll gates on it, thus enabling the investors to re-coup their capital with enormous profit within 25 years. But the greater worry is that the second Niger Bridge promises is a public relations stunt. Julius Berger has not been paid a kobo to this day! The construction giant was directed to move a few machines to site for public relations purposes when the president went to Onitsha to flag it off on March 10, 2014. The so-called flag-off is reminiscent of the president’s commissioning on October 3, 2013, of the 434Megawatt National Integrated Power Project (NIPP) at Geregu in Kogi State on October 19, 2013, and of the 500MW NIPP plant at Omotosho in Ondo State on October 16, 2013, though there are no gas pipelines to them. The result is that none of the plants has produced electricity for a second!
There is a deliberate onslaught against the development of Igboland by the federal government and its agents in the South East. My honest advice to them is simple: Igbo votes are not for sale to the highest bidders.
• Okorie is chairman and presidential candidate of the United Progressive Party (UPP).
