Tinubu, Power Minister and Wise Counsel

Aliyu Adamu

It’s too early in the day to see the results of the actions or inactions of the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu.

Adelabu is barely eight months into a job. The Cicero of Esa-Oke, late Bola Ige and power expert, Prof. Barth Nnaji, had no solution to the age-long darkness bedeviling the country.

In the same way cerebral Babatunde Fashola who having studied law, and on a lighter mood, is an engineer by his father made little or no difference. So, the incumbent, a banker by experience, has his job well cut out for him.

He came under fire recently for insulting Nigerians in a bid to defend the hike in electricity tariff for those who enjoy electricity supply for 20-hour by almost 300 percent.

The recent appointments of Rural Electrification Agency, REA board, and Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer by President Bola Tinubu is also not a good advertisement for the minister as the Moses to lead us to the promised land of uninterrupted power supply.

“All members of the Board shall be appointed by the President on recommendation of the minister,” says a part in Section 109 of the new Electricity act. Mark the words: “on the recommendation of the minister.”

Electricity issue in Nigeria should definitely not be a laughing matter, or for political patronage, considering that the country has long been grappling with inadequate power supply and energy is critical to all nations’ social and economic developments.

So, for Nigeria to turn the corner, government must give the job of directing the affairs of MDAs in the power sector to safe hands.

On REA matter, it grieves one that Adelabu elected to find job for the boys at the expense of local businesses and the greater number of Nigerians groaning under the strain of protracted, epileptic power supply.

What informed the appointment of Ex-Kano governor and the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Abdullahi Ganduje’s son, Umar, beyond being somebody’s son? Apology to music diva, Tiwa Savage.

Many other things calculated to disqualify the former Kano first son: Public perception of his father as a sleaze personified, rightly or wrongly drawn from the ‘gandollar’ video, and the ongoing prosecution of the immediate past Kano first family, including Umar for alleged corruption and bribery while they held sway in the state. Admit that an accused is presumed innocent until it’s proved otherwise by the court. But Umar’s appointment is not good for the optics, particularly for an agency having trust issue, stemming from the corruption allegations rocking the organisation.

It was no surprise that an online news medium settled for the headline, ‘Tinubu chooses Ganduje’s son as director in agency rocked by ‘N1.2bn fraud’.

That said, Adelabu also erred in law with regards another part of the aforementioned section of the electricity act, which read, “Six members appointed to represent the six geographical zones of Nigeria out of which one shall be designated as part-time chairman, two others designated as non-executive directors while the other three shall serve as Executive Director and the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the agency.”

It beats one that the same Tinubu that signed the electricity bill which act is in force into law is the same person that cannot follow the law to the letter.

While South-east, North-east and North-central have nobody on the Board, the North-west has two representatives, in the persons of Ganduje’s son and the acting MD/CEO Abba Abubakar Aliyu, who are both from Kano. It’s pertinent to add that the law only permits two representatives from a geopolitical zone on the Board when one of them is appointed as the Chairman.

The minister’s appointments, yes appointments, of Aliyu as the MD/CEO and Ganduje’s son as Executive Director, Technical Services, two most important offices in REA sealed the fate of checks and balances in the agency under the new regime.

Shutting out three other zones by not appointing persons from there, and favouring only Kano with two appointments, and leaving out the other six states in the North-west, bring into question the sense of justice and fairness of the Honourable Minister.

When you put into context that another Kano-man, one Mogaji, is the current Director of Fund, and his predecessor, Abubakar Sambo, was key to the perpetration of the alleged multi-billion-naira fraud by the suspended MD, and some Directors and staff of REA, then it’s safe to say that the agency is still in wrong hands.

His choice of Aliyu as the new honcho points to one thing: that it is not a new dawn in REA given that the incumbent was brought into the agency to head a unit, Nigeria Electrification Project, NEP, by the embattled Ahmad Salihijo Ahmad.

It is right to conjecture that the appointment of four Board members out of seven and not appointing the Chairman too is deliberate since there’s no want of capacity in the zones left out, and previous Boards of other agencies constituted under President Tinubu were made in whole.

So, it’s not preposterous to conclude that the prevailing situation is contrived by the minister to enable him have maximum control over the agency since there’s no board.

But what purpose is the presumed control, this lopsided and incomplete Board is serving Mr. Adelabu well, only him can tell.

In any case, the situations on the ground portend that the agency is still trapped in the past, which is best brought home by a purported, unofficial report of the investigative team of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on the graft that made the President sacked the Board, suspended the MD/CEO, and enthroned Aliyu in acting capacity.

Making the rounds on social media, the report goes thus: “The interim report of an investigation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has revealed details of the misappropriation of about N12.7 billion in the Rural Electrification Agency of Nigeria (REA). The report indicts the former Managing Director of REA, Ahmad Salihijo Ahmad, and his management team who were suspended and replaced by President Tinubu last week.

“Thirty-seven bank accounts linked to Salihijo Ahmad’s BVN despite claims on his asset declaration forms with the CCB that he has only two accounts. The BVN printout depicts irregularities as there are different dates of birth associated with the suspect.

“The agency awarded contracts worth N300 million to two companies for the same training programme. The two companies, Cees Assist Resources Limited and Braintask Value Resources Limited, have the same owner, one Umaefulem Chibueze, who was used to siphon funds through the programme.

“A director in the agency, Alaba Netufo, was running a private business to which some contractors of the agency had on several occasions paid money.

“Gross misappropriation of N12.4 billion COVID-19 funds disbursed by the FG to the agency in two tranches of (N6.2 billion) each in 2020 and 2021 for mass rural solar power lighting.

“Agency was involved in coercing contractors executing zonal intervention and capital projects to pay five per cent of the contract sum as ‘’monitoring and evaluation’’ charges, “which are usually paid in cash to senior/management staff of the agency and are, more often than not, embezzled.”

Aliyu Adamu writes from Bauchi