By Ismail Mudashir & Simon Echewofun

The beleaguered power sector cannot improve under the current privatisation arrangement, senators said yesterday.
After painting a glooming picture of the sector during yesterday’s session many senators concluded the only solution was to reverse the privatisation sale.
They spoke during a debate on overbilling of electricity consumers by Distribution Companies (DISCOs).
Senator Dino Melaye, who sponsored the motion, called for the overhauling of the sector.
Chairman Committee on Privatisation, Senator Ben Murray-Bruce (PDP, Bayelsa) said those who invested in the business thought it was like a company where they will make a lot of money.
He said they only had enough money to pay the government but lack the capacity to run a power sector company in a modern economy.
“They are technically bankrupt; unless we re-visit the entire privatisation process, unless we understand and dissect what went wrong, we will still get estimated billing.
“We have a catastrophe in our hands; there will be no light in Nigeria under the current structure.”
He added that the was “no hope in sight unless we revisit the process and try to understand what went wrong and bring in new players with capacity,” he said.
For his part, Vice chairmanCommittee on Power, Senator Bukar Mustapha (APC, Katsina) said the privatization of the power sector has failed in addressing the challenges.
He noted that Nigeria has an installed capacity of 12,522 megawatt but that the actually available megawatt is just over 4000.
“The privatisation model we have used has not worked. We are sitting on an emergency. Something has to be done drastically to address the situation, “he said.
Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, who presided over the plenary said the prayers on the motion should be stepped down pending the consideration of the report of the Senate Committee on Power on the privatization of the power sector.
Many electricity customers in Nigeria had expected instant turnaround of the facilities and quality of services described as rotten under the defunct PHCN after the privatisation over three years ago.
The federal government sold out 60 per cent stakes in about 17 power firms to private investors for US$2.525 billion and handed it over on November 1, 2013.
While the five Generation Companies (GenCos) were sold for $1.269bn, the 11 Distribution Companies (DisCos) went for $1.256bn. The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) being the third in the value chain was not privatised.
Powers behind the privatised firms
After the federal government concluded the privatisation transaction, former Vice President and Chairman, National Council on Power(NCP), Namadi Sambo handed over 60 per cent control of 10 DisCos and four GenCos to the investors on November 1, 2013. Sapele Power, Afam GenCo and the Kaduna DisCo were not taken over until later due to some legal issues.
Daily Trust found that most of the top drivers of the new private-led firms have political affiliations. Some others were not in power sector business investments earlier but got expatriates as technical partners.
Geregu I GenCo
It has Chief Femi Otedola, as Chairman of Amperion Ltd, the core investor. He is also the Chairman of Forte Oil. It has BSG Resources Ltd and Shanghai Municipal Electric Power Company as its technical partners.
It planned to make a 50 per cent increase in the short to medium term to generate 600mw. However three years after, Geregu I hardly generates 400mw due to poor gas supply and other issues.
Transcorp Ughelli GenCo
Chairman of Transcorp/Woodrock Consortium, Mr Tony Elumelu acquired the 972mw capacity Ughelli Power firm at $300million. It planned an overhaul of generation capacity to over 1,070mw in five years but said it attained 600mw last year, after three years. Its last generation output was about 340mw this month due to gas supply, industry statistics revealed.
Kainji/Jebba Hydro GenCo
Col. Sani Bello (Rtd), frontier of Mainstream Energy Solutions got Kainji and Jebba GenCo for $170m. The Niger state investor, a former military administrator of Kano state, is also the chairman of MTN and Amni Oil and Gas,. It has Russian partner, RusHydro to acquire the plant. It said recently that it overhauled two turbines but it produces a combined energy of about 735mw and has 826mw capacity so far.
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https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/news/general/power-can-t-improve-under-current-arrangement-senators/199193.html

[size=14pt]Owoseni to DPOs: Leave Lagos if you like bribe[/size][/size] By : Precious Igbonwelundu and Boniface Ebere


[size=10pt]Lagos State Police Commissioner, Fatai Owoseni, on Tuesday warned Area Commanders and Divisional Police Officers (DPOs) in the state police command to shun bribery or leave the state.
Owoseni stated this during a lecture on Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officers at the Police Officers’ Wives’ Association (POWA) Hall, Ikeja.
He warned that the era of impunity and corruption among cops was gone, appealing to his subordinates to come for transfer if they would not want to play by the rules in the state.
He said: “I am tired of hearing about shooting or killing of innocent persons. No one has the right to take another man’s life. It is only God that has the right to take life.
“It is your responsibility as a DPO to know those who are collecting bribe under you. If you refuse to stop them, they will stop you from being a DPO.
“It is embarrassing to see policemen collecting bribes and chasing yahoo yahoo boys for a DPO. I would not cover any DPO. I will expose you. Just leave Lagos before I get to your station. I cannot share out of your misconduct. I will give your photographs and details to journalists to expose you.
“I am shocked to hear that some Area Commanders and DPOs are on the pay rolls of fraudsters. I am investigating. Just pray that I don’t get you. Just know that you are causing pains for taxpayers if you are intimidating them and collecting bribe from criminals.
“It is a curse to build a house with the money. The building would collapse on your head. Some of you even take people to the bank to collect money. If you train your children with the money, they won’t be useful to you.
“If those who were in the force before us bastardized it, we would not have the opportunity to be enlisted in the police. I am tired of pleading with police victims because you are doing what you are not supposed to do. Remember, one day, you are going to die and give account to your creator.
“Go back to your areas of jurisdiction and warn your men against brutality, indiscriminate use of handcuffs on pregnant women, elders and persons with disability.
“Special Anti Robbery Squad (SARS) should take note. I will not tolerate any act of indiscipline.
“Learn a lesson from DPO Ijeshatedo, who shot dead a fashion designer. He is in our custody and we are compiling charges against him. He would soon be arraigned in court.
“All DPOs in Ikorodu should use all resources within their disposals to fish out Badoo cult group that has been causing havoc in the community. I am giving you all 48 hours to decongest your cells. Nobody should be detained more than 48 hours. I will conduct checks on the cells.”

http://thenationonlineng.net/owoseni-dpos-leave-lagos-like-bribe/

IGP deploys special squad to remove roadblocks on highways

The Inspector General of Police, IGP Ibrahim Idris has deployed Special X-Squad Teams across the country to commence with effect from Monday the removal of all forms of illegal blockage of highways and roads, and other obstructions.
Most of such blocks are created and operated by unlawful revenue/tax collectors, road transport unions, labour and trade related unions inhibiting vehicle movement and smooth passage of passengers and goods, and other road users across the country.
The Special X-Squad Teams deployed are under strict instructions to also arrest, investigate and prosecute any person or group of persons found committing this illegal act. It is unlawful and contrary to the laws for any individual, or group under any name to take laws into their hands and block any Road or Highway in full or any part of it under the guise of collection of Revenue/Tax or enforcement of the interests of such organisations.
For avoidance of doubt, the Taxes and Levies act, Laws of Federation of Nigeria 2004 section 2 (2) disallowed any person, including a Tax Authority from mounting a Road block in any part of the Federation for the purposes of collecting any Tax or Levy.
Consequently, the Nigeria Police advised the state and local governments, Boards of Internal Revenue service across the country, transport unions, labour and traders associations that it is against the law for any organization to create blockade and restrict free usage of rand highways anywhere in the country.

FROM: http://sunnewsonline.com/igp-deploys-special-squad-to-remove-roadblocks-on-highways/
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Celebrations may be in order. The snag is that, the directive can only be as good as, those that implement it.

The government of President Muhammadu Buhari has made history. It has dragged the naira, at last, to its Golgotha. At N500 to a dollar in the parallel market, the naira is dead. But it was an avoidable death. Successive Nigerian governments never showed any concern about the wellness of the local currency. This is because no Nigerian leader, military or civilian, was ever prepared to lead. They chanced into office either through the barrel of the gun or by election grifting.
They lacked vision so they could not even plan for tomorrow. But if we can excuse the perfidy in the military era, we cannot make excuse for those leaders in the democratic agora. Obasanjo government wasted the fortunes of the nation in the most grotesque manner. In full consciousness he and his team plundered the national till to the extent that he was not ashamed to go public with his then deputy, Atiku Abubakar, with details of how they feasted on the account of the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF).
The Umaru Yar’adua era was the period Nigeria relapsed into seizure. The nation merely gasped for breath. The incompetence of Yar’adua coupled with his ill-health prepared the stage for mindless looting which out of sentiment, nobody is talking about today. The cultic grip on a dying Yar’adua by a small cabal around him ensured that the nation had no dream, did not stir nor dare hence did not win. Nigeria, as a nation, was left with the routine of sleeping and waking.
Yar’adua’s successor, Goodluck Jonathan, who shares the same badge of incompetence with his predecessor rather than buck the trend, rode on the same sordid tide of inefficiency. Jonathan like Yar’adua, like Shehu Shagari, was a weak leader. His weakness was not on account of ill-health. It was just the lot of a man who refused to be a man or was incapable of being one. So, under his watch, looting of public treasury became a schizophrenic pastime. Jonathan is a good guy but good guys do not make good leaders. He lacked shrewdness and the courage to dream and to dare.
[/b]Yet, in all of these governments life was still bearable. Nigerians got by, and still managed a wry smile, a little laughter. But the Buhari government has killed laughter and joy. So far, it is the worst government ever in Nigeria’s history. The hardship is just too much to bear. Worst of it all, the government lacks the vision and drive to pull the nation through. How can a member of OPEC cartel not have kerosene and cooking gas for her citizens to cook? Simply benumbing!
For good reason, Buhari came to power an angry man. The state of the nation should make a reasonable Nigerian angry. That’s also why he got the people’s vote. He campaigned with good intentions; he said corruption must be killed; he said Nigeria deserves better than she is getting. Very good, I agree. But the same Buhari failed to review his own leadership credential; he failed to notice that he cannot even lead a local government in the 21st century. First, he is not a good planner; he is not a dreamer; he lacks drive and he is imprisoned by his own innate inability to trust others. Buhari, very obvious now, is not a risk-taker; he is a poor portrait of entrepreneurship. A good leader is a risk-taker; an entrepreneur, whether as social entrepreneur or otherwise.
This explains why he has dragged Nigeria into a hellhole, into a burrow of sorrow. Buhari’s incompetence is made manifest in his skewed appointments and in the calibre of men and women he appointed into offices. It shows also in the style of appointment. The long delay in filling his cabinet also contributed to the mix of ineptitude that dogs his administration. No leader stays for six months without a cabinet; that is six months of no vision, no goal, no activity. That’s too long a time in the life of any economy. The horrendous failure of the Buhari government is not on account of falling prices of crude oil. Those who put up such illogic are either mentally indolent or wallow in the cesspit of unreason. Lee Kuan Yew did not build modern Singapore from the ruins of war with oil money; Jerry Rawlings did not unclasp Ghana from the grip of despair with oil money. Ghana, once a pariah nation – no friends, avoided by Nigeria and other nations – has today become the second home, even a better home for Nigerians and multinationals frustrated out of Nigeria by incompetent leaderships. Need I mention the story of tiny Botswana? The country once ranked among the poorest of the poor is today one of Africa’s fastest growing economies and stable democracies with comparatively better infrastructure and enviable educational system that has put her universities ahead of Nigerian universities in global ranking. Such revival was made possible because the leadership of Seretse Khama Ian Khama in recent years innovatively husbanded his no-nonsense style of leadership into real productivity and the indicators are there to show for his effort.
President Buhari can still turn things around, but first, he must do a few quick fixes. The President must halt the dollar racket. There is a virile forex racket orchestrated by banks cashing in on the regulatory weakness of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). The President also contributed to this forex scam when he created a ridiculously low exchange rate of N197 to a dollar for pilgrims travelling to Jerusalem or Mecca. People mop up dollar from CBN at this rate and rush to black market to make a kill. This government must distinguish itself from previous governments by halting forthwith the subsidy on religious pilgrimage. Why would the government subsidise religious voyage to anywhere when the same government has starved local manufacturers of dollar to import raw materials and machinery.
The President needs to take a second and critical look into the deceit in the banking system. They are the ones manipulating the forex market. They create scarcity of dollar for the primary sector while selling same in the black market where they triple the profit. The economics of asking Nigerians to stop patronising foreign goods has not worked and is not working because even Mr. President still holidays in London and patronises hospitals abroad. At the root of the crashing naira at foreign exchange market is a cabal in the banking system that keeps profiting from the multiple exchange rates created by the government for different occasions some as ridiculous as subsidizing (holy?) pilgrimages that do little to make us any holier than we are. Naira is crashing not because crude oil price has dropped, no! It is crashing because we have not prudently managed the little that we have.
Again, the President must deliberately loosen up by creating a window for multinationals to repatriate their profit to their home countries. Frustrating them out of the country worsens the situation because they simply move to a neighbouring country, build their factory there, create jobs and wealth there while still making their sales in Nigeria.
The newly formed task force to revive the economy should advise the President to also ensure that local debts are serviced just so money will circulate. The economy is suffocating and all the President needs do is to be upbeat not uptight. For too long, many parastatals functioned without the full complement of their boards. Where there is no board, no management tender board meeting holds, no payments are made and no new contracts are awarded hence no money in circulation. Holding in does not help any economy, holding out does. Mr President should hold out, just a little bit, otherwise the naira dieth.

FROM: http://sunnewsonline.com/at-n500-to-a-dollar-the-end-is-nigh/

A BBC journalist Martin Patience, last Friday reported, that Mr. Obasanjo, is the vice-president running Nigeria, while President Buhari is away in London.
Q: Who is in charge of affairs then while Mr. Buhari is here in London receiving medical treatment?
A: Well the government said its been following procedure. So last weekend it said that President Buhari was extending his holiday for these medical tests. They, then sent a letter to the Senate, authorizing that power be handed over to the Vice-President, Obasanjo. So the government is stressing ………………………..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUAwkOs9DVM

[size=14pt]YOU CAN LEAVE THE ARMY[/size]

In his convocation speech at the University of Benin last week, the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, remarked that, “Sango is the god of lightning and thunder, but all the sacrifices made to Sango have not generated one kilowatt of electric power.” Let me make it clear that I understand the point Fashola was making within the context of the entire speech but his choice of which god to denigrate is a cowardly decision. Fashola could have referred to the gods that dominate Nigeria’s public space – the Christian and Muslim – and risk being ripped into shreds by their adherents. Instead, he reaches for a marginal god, one that has already been endlessly disparaged in popular culture by a tribe of ignoramuses. Sango does not deserve such a gratuitous insult from a national public official.
Why allude to Sango, whom no public official sacrifices to (at least publicly) when both the Christian and Muslim adherents are the higher consumers of public resources? Sango’s shrine is not the largest in the country, competing with his peers to homogenise the public sphere; Sango is not the one we worship in business centres that have now been converted to religious houses; Sango does not have enough followers who can contend for their representative to be appointed to public office. Nobody gets forex subsidy to visit Sango’s shrine but Nigerian Christians and Muslims have had no qualms using public money to fund their pilgrimages. Why not take down the actual sources of religiosity that impede social progress rather than use Sango as a rhetorical diversion?
Besides, Sango worshippers are not simple-minded dolts who expect him to bequeath them electricity. The Greeks, for instance, see Apollo as the god of Music but European/western culture did not wait for him to write their classic music scores. They also take Bacchus as the god of wine but they do not chide him for not running a winery. Diana is the goddess of hunting while Athena is the goddess of intellection but who actually sacrifices to them so they can give anything back? These are mythological figures around whom people build a cultural economy and from there enrich their imagination. We see how much this has benefited mankind and we should be borrowing ideas from there, not running down our indigenous mythology.

The Punch


While governing Lagos State, mind-boggling figures were spent on a website for his office(N78million) & the car-park of his official residence(N600million). He declared himself free of any impropriety, on the grounds that, he neither negotiated those contracts, nor signed the cheques. Now he’s talking about Sango. Is Sango running the power ministry with him? He should be delivering improved power supply, not waiting for Sango’s response to the sacrifice, of his adherents.