……Dr Olu Agunloye Former Minster of Power and Steel.
PREAMBLE
In August 2022, Mr Simon Kolawole first released his widely circulated contract-statement:
“Who will Love this Country?” as front page of the ThisDay Newspapers of 21 August 2022
and again in August 2023, acting on the instructions of a former Minister of Power. The
contract-statement is misleading, false, and malicious. It is calculated to divert attention
from the wrongdoings of some former Power Ministers and other Government officials in
respect the Mambilla Power Project. In 2022, I ignored the write-up but now that the former
President has reacted to the same article that he appeared not to have seen in 2022, I will
give a measured response.
THE CABLE NEWS STORY
The Cable News story credited to Pa Obasanjo about the Mambilla Power Project gave me
much concern not because they were incorrect, but because they were attributed to our
Baba Agbalagba, broadly revered in Yorubaland and a former President of Nigeria. For me,
as a thoroughbred Omoluabi of Yorubaland, I can only politely say with all due respect:
Baba, ko ri be, sa. (meaning, Baba, that is not correct, sir). That’s so much response to our
revered Baba Agbalagba.
But to Pa Obasanjo as the former president, I will give fuller response here, albeit politely
and in a measured dose. I served under this great former President for four years (1999 –
2003) first, as Special Assistant to the Minister of Power and Steel, then to the Minister of
Justice and Honourable Attorney General of the Federation (Uncle Bola Ige) and later, as
Honourable Minister of Defence (Navy), then Honourable Minister of Power and Steel. I also
worked closely under him from 2003 to 2007 as the Head of the National eGovernment
Strategies, mainstreaming e-enabled techniques, and applications to tiers of Government
at the Federal and State levels.
Let me start by reacting to Pa Obasanjo as former President who told the story to The Cable
News of how a shrewd Animal Farm Manager General (AFMG) set an elaborate system in
the farm under his watch to ensure that only rats, mice, and small rodents could wander
past the robust farm fence, but rabbits, antelopes, and other bigger animals needed the
AFMG to open special gates for them to go out. The story explained how the AFMG ran the
farm with iron hands for eight years that all and sundry applauded him. Then, after twenty
years, the AFMG realised that six big elephants had, without his knowing, passed through
the rodent holes that he installed to block bigger animals. Pa Obasanjo also narrated how
the AFMG, now in his retirement, became furious and desperately wished he had found out
this negligence during his stewardship so that he could sack the Farm Assistant who let
elephants escape through the rodent holes. I felt disappointed and ashamed to find that the
Animal Farm Manager General was, indeed, our most revered Baba Agbalagba, Chief
Olusegun Obasanjo, the former President himself. I still wonder if The Cable News reported
him correctly.
In fact, I wish to say with all humility and respect that all the things credited to the former
President in the extensive interview in The Cable News are not correct. Take for instance he had arranged meetings with Chinese Companies and Chinese President in China in which
three Power Ministers and the then President Obasanjo attended between 2000 and
2002 before I was appointed Minister of Power. On the very day (28 Nov 2002), that I
resumed office as Minister of Power, Pa Obasanjo himself, in a formal letter, handed me
his presidential approval on the Sunrise proposal with an instruction that Sunrise be
invited “for the final negotiations for the execution of the Mambilla Power Project.”
NO ONE QUERIED ME FOR 20 YEARS
The following played out after I had ceased to be a minister from 29 May 2003. It turned
out that (a) Between 2003 to 2007, President Obasanjo was attempting to invalidate the
Sunrise May 2003 BOT contract on Mambilla Project; and (b) Between 2007 to 2015, the
Yar’Adua and Jonathan presidencies recognised the Mambilla Project as a BOT contract
validly awarded in May 2003, cancelled the component of it awarded as a procurement
contract by President Obasanjo on the 28 May 2007 at $1.46 billion, and signed a fresh
agreement on the Mambilla Hydropower Project in 2012 with Sunrise and (c) Between 2015
to 2023, the then President Buhari cancelled and re-awarded the Mambilla Power Project,
and was making and breaching own Agreements with Sunrise. In all of these, spanning 20
(twenty) years, none of the Presidents (Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, Malam Musa Yar’Adua,
Dr. Goodluck Jonathan or Gen. Muhammadu Buhari) asked me or questioned me about
issuing any unauthorised Mambilla contract. This is because all the Nigerian Presidents,
including Chief Obasanjo, were aware that I did nothing wrong.
BOT versus PROCUREMENT CONTRACT
However, at a time after May 2003, the then President Obasanjo appeared to have changed
his mind on the Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) model in which the private investor
would provide own funds, a path that President Obasanjo and six Ministers of Power, three
Ministers of Finance, two Ministers of the Federal Ministry of Water Resources, and the
Debt Management Office had pursued for four years. The former President then chose to
embark on a new pathway in which Nigeria would execute the Mambilla Power Project by
paying from Government own funds.
The former President decided, therefore, to break the Mambilla Hydropower Project into
smaller components, like civil engineering works, hydraulic works, structural works etc. with
the intention to award them as separate multiple contracts as Government procurements,
on cash and carry basis, for which Nigerian Government would pay mobilisation fees and
make other payments in stages to contractors. When one of the contractors, which got a
component of the Mambilla project awarded by President Obasanjo as $1.46 billion
procurement contract, presented its request for a $400 million mobilisation fees, President
Yar’Adua scrutinised the contract and cancelled it in 2008 because of proven corruption on
the part of officials who served under President Obasanjo between 2003 to 2007.
THE CRUX OF THE CASE
Dr. Agunloye awarded the Mambilla Power Project as a BOT at no cost to FGN, while the
former President Obasanjo started to re-award the project as multiple procurement
contracts at humongous costs to FGN and with associated corrupt practices which were
uncovered by succeeding Presidents.
WHO WILL LOVE NIGERIA?
I awarded Mambilla Power Project as BOT at no cost to Nigeria. Former President Obasanjo
awarded one component part of the same Mambilla project for $1.46 billion as
procurement contract, former President Jonathan signed a 2012 General Project Execution
Agreement and former President Buhari and his then Minister of Power, Barrister
Babatunde Raji Fashola awarded another component of the Mambilla Project at a whopping
$5.8 billion payable by FGN in cash. The FGN awarded, re-awarded and cancelled contracts
and Agreements at will and now must face the consequences at International Arbitration
Courts. The result is that the Mambilla Hydropower Project has been stalled for yet another
twenty years, and the former President (Chief Olusegun Obasanjo) and others are feeling
greatly uneasy about the consequences. This is why the Simon Kolawole’s question, “Who
will Love the Country?” should have been addressed to his (Kolawole’s) sponsors, not me.
CONSPIRACY
Currently, some former and serving FGN officials are desperately attempting to “criminalise”
the Mambilla Power Project by trying to make me the scapegoat with the sole aim to avoid
consequent legal contractual obligations of the Government arising from breaches of
agreements with Sunrise. This “criminalisation strategy” was inadvertently exposed by Mr
Simon Kolawole. The Government officials are using State Apparatus to intimidate, harass
and threaten me. The EFCC invited me on 16 May 2023, 20 (twenty) years after I had ceased
to be Minister of Power and grilled me for over eight hours. The Investigating Officer
confronted me with “issuing a contract of $6 billion to Sunrise without authority”. That was
the very first time ever that anyone had questioned me about the Mambilla Power Project,
and it was because of the criminalisation conspiracy by those who actually have committed
against Nigeria. The EFCC threatened that they were in possession of my Bank Statements
for the last 25 (twenty-five) years. I explained my innocence and made formal statements to
the EFCC. I had also sent more documents and materials to the Commission and the court
after. My lawyers have sued EFCC to stop harassing me and have challenged EFCC to make
public my bank accounts and charged the commission to go to court if they have any case
against me.
CONCLUSION
We see that as the FGN faces the resultant consequences of breaching agreements and
cancelling contracts with impunity, some former and serving Government officials, perhaps
including former President Obasanjo, now want to use me as a scapegoat-victim to cover up
their inappropriate practices and to evade looming fines and damages at international
arbitrations.
Dr. Olu Agunloye,
Former Minster of Power and Steel.
Abuja. Nigeria. 14 September 2023
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