In BROKEN TONGUES edition of 12th February, 2015, Amanze Obi touched on the raw issue of endorsement of presidential candidates by individuals, groups and organizations. 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 Ohaneze 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 Southeast 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 Southeast is the integrated 141 Megawatt Aba Power Project built by Geometric Power Ltd at the cost of well over $500million. 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 and the National Council on Privatisation say in an official report has neither the technical ability nor the financial muscle to run the business.
Professor Bart Nnaji, the erstwhile Minister of Power and world class academic who led the consortium which built the Aba Power Project, pays an average of $3.5m 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 Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke, the Honourable Minister of Petroleum Resources, directed that the little quantity of natural gas made available to the Southeast be diverted to other parts of the country.
ExxonMobil, in particular, which produces 400million 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 except the East.
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 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 Southeast 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 N47billion, N114.8billion 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 N30billion payment by the Federal Government and huge payments by both the Anambra and Delta State governments, will have toll gates on it, thus enabling the investors to recoup their capital with enormous profit within 25 years.
But the greater worry is that the Second Niger Bridge promise 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, even though there are no gas pipelines to them. The result is that none of the plants has produced electricity for a second!
The Igbo people should have read the handwriting early enough. Captain Emmanuel Iheanacho, the current gubernatorial candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), enjoys the unenviable reputation of being the only minister under Jonathan to be suspended in office. For merely having a policy disagreement with the then permanent secretary in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Dr (Mrs) Awosika, he was disgraced out of office, accused of incompetence the day after Jonathan was reelected on April 16, 2011. Despite the fantastic work which Professor Bart Nnaji, a world acclaimed scientist and engineer, was doing in the Federal Ministry of Power, the administration launched a campaign to besmirch his hard-earned personal and professional reputation.
Professor Nnaji, whom the globally influential Economist magazine on September 8, 2012, called the only “spark of light” in President Jonathan’s government, was forced to resign in order to retain his credibility. His resignation shocked the whole world, rattling the World Bank and other electricity development partners like the Department of Foreign Development of the United Kingdom and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). It is regrettable that while the whole world was embarrassed at Nnaji’s resignation, the Igbo leaders in the PDP kept silent because of the crumbs they were receiving from State House, Abuja. I am on record as the only Igbo political leader who not only protested against the ominous development, but also insisted that another Igbo of repute be considered as Prof Nnaji’s successor as the Minister of Power.
The Nnaji treatment, without the Igbo PDP members fighting back, emboldened the PDP administration to treat other distinguished Igbo people with contempt. Eze Festus Odimegwu was unceremoniously thrown out as chairman of the National Population Commission, even without observing constitutional provisions. His only offence, as President Jonathan himself stated at least on two occasions in public, was his announcement of his determination to conduct a free and fair census! Odimegwu was not just another public officer. He is, for all practical purposes, a genius. He was the best graduating student at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, despite attending a community secondary school where he passed the West African School Certificate with distinction, and went on to emerge the overall best postgraduate student at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, the first time a black person has won the honour at this historic institution known globally for excellence.
Since Lt Gen Azubuike Ihejirika ceased to be the Chief of the Army Staff on January 16, 2014, no Igbo person has been sitting on the nation’s security council. No other major ethnic group has been subjected to this kind of marginalization and humiliation.
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, founder and first National Chairman of APGA, is the Chairman and Presidential candidate of the United Progressive Party (UPP)
