Thread by @hartng

I've been involved in Power Sector reforms at the highest level. Flew in choppers with GEJ when he was VP & Chairman of Presidential Committee on Power with a Gov from each Zone. Toured power assets. There was a blueprint to tackle it. Why are we still discussing 2,000mw in 2019?

This thing is annoying. There was a solid plan for unbundling of power assets. Discos, Gencos, Transcos, etc. Then came the sale & Nigeria happened. Special interests were favoured over coys with relevant experience, finance & track record. It became paddy paddy arrangement.

Vested interests somehow convinced Govt to retain harmful policies. New asset owners who were supposed to inject funds balked & relied on Govt for bailout injection which still went South. Bart Nnaji was shoved aside & his original concept was watered down.

GSM was supposed to happen in the Power Sector if the original plan was followed through. New asset owners, like GSM licensees, were supposed to inject massive funds to roll out new infrastructure & recoup by selling generated power. All was solid. Then Nigeria.

Today, Govt by some crazy archaic policy, still controls price of power so investment in the sector is not bankable as you just cannot break even at Govt fixed price. New asset owners basically continued from where NEPA stopped with little addition in infrastructure.

So dear Nigerians, for as long as your govt insists on keeping a firm, senseless grip on Power pricing & control of basic operations, we're f**ked for the foreseeable future. Successive regimes have refused to do the needful. It meins we'll continue to sleep here.

Imagine if GSM licenses were only sold to cronies of Govt officials & govt insisted on capping price of calls. GSM coys would still rely on NITEL assets & we'll be hearing stories. There is no short cut. Get out of the way & allow serious coys take charge of the Power Sector.

Important to state that Bart Nnaji wasn't entirely blameless in his ouster. He was promoting Eastern Electric Coy as buyer of Enugu Disco with his Geometric Power as major shareholder. He was cited, rightfully, on conflict of interest. With his ouster, the hawks moved in & undid.

As Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Power, he initiated the unbundling reforms. Gathered SE Govs & convinced them to set up SPV (Eastern Electric) with Geometric to acquire Enugu Disco. I represented Abia State Govt on the Board of Eastern Electric.

Eagled eyed elements discovered the plan & raised alarm. Prof's defence that he had stepped down from Geometric didn't fly. He was already Minister of Power at this point. Vested interests mounted a well-funded lobby for his head. He was eased out. The rest is history.

I was of age when FG attempted sale of NITEL a number of times. Preferred bidders as soon as they took ownership proceeded to strip assets & sell NITEL properties. Nothing added. FG kept revoking until they got sense & did GSM. Same is happening in Power Sector.

Now that it is glaring that purchasers of Power assets are not adding a MW to our situation & seeing that they're in clear breach of several purchase conditions, why have the sales not been revoked? 'Corrupt' PDP couldn't. Why have we not under integrity?

In the military era, Telecoms, Power & Broadcasting were coup assets. Coup-plotters targeted these establishments 1st for communications control & leverage. Why IBB located National Broadcasting Services within the Villa. To protect broadcasts from hijack by coup plotters.

Then, an integral ingredient of a successful coup was shutting down of Telecoms, Power & gaining access to the central broadcast portal at Nigerian Broadcasting Services. The wily IBB kept these within eyesight. That era is gone but the archaic relics remain.

Gaining a Radio broadcast licence then was a matter of National security. Any Captain can seize your station & Fellow Nigerians... You'll be surprised at the number of camel-through-the-eyes-of-a-niddle policies that were enacted to check coups which still subsist in Nigeria.