POWER PROBE

The House Panel probing the award and execution of Independent Power Projects in the country has been inviting the actors involved in the awarding and supervising of these Power Projects said to be worth a collective amount of $16billion.

The latest person to be invited is our erstwhile former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo-though not surprising he refused to show up citing illness. What continues to baffle me is the level of corruption and laxity that was involved in the award of these contracts. For a government that sang ‘Due Process’ throughout its lifetime, its unfortunate to note that this was discarded to the dustbin when it came to the projects. All we have heard from these principal actors is to trade blames amongst each other and pass the buck or feign total ignorance. The facts on ground don’t lie. During the tour made by the panel to all the locations where this projects were to be cited all they saw were abandoned projects, slow pace of work in places where the contractor has even just managed to start something.

The question to ask these our so called leaders is how could such huge amount be allowed to fritter away with no checks and balances? How can they explain instances where money running into hundreds of millions of dollars has been paid some contractors yet level of work still falls below 5% or 0% in some cases?

Nigerians have been thrown into darkness with PHCN now serving as the secondary source of power while Generators has taken over as the primary. It is very unfortunate and depressing that these same cabals that put us into this situation are still in Government or still frolicking with Government with no shame whatsoever for their misdeeds.

We are all waiting to see what the outcome of the Probe will be whether it will go down the drain like the past probes we’ve witnessed in this country, eg Gulf War Oil Windfall just to name one. But one thing I want the Panel and the Executive arm of the government to know is that if noting tangible comes out of these dirty revelations then our country is doomed and we all better start praying.