The Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership (CACOL) has lauded the resolve of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration to investigate and get to the root of the over $16billion allegedly expended on power (electricity) generation and distribution under the leadership of former Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan’s regimes.
It also backed the calls for Federal Government’s review of the appropriateness of Obasanjo’s alleged use of public office to generate funds running into billions of Naira to establish a presidential library, named after him as a personal property.
Debo Adeniran, Executive Chairman, in a statement signed by Adegboyega Otunuga, the group’s Coordinator, Media and Publications, recalled that President Buhari, in one of his public outings sometime last year, posed a rhetorical question, ‘$16bn has been spent on power within the years of PDP (People’s Democratic Party) in power. Where is the Power?’
He maintained that although Obasanjo, had often claimed that he had been severally probed by the EFCC (Economic and Financial Crimes Commission) over all his spending while he held sway as the number one citizen, “we make bold to say that being probed by your own or a surrogate government is quite different from getting probed by an independent and impartial regime.
“While we agree that government is always a continuum, especially under a democratic setting, when one considers the humongous amount Nigeria made under the PDP regime and how most of those funds were mismanaged without anything tangible to show for it, then one shudders that a huge proportion of those earnings were earmarked and spent on provision of electricity with only much darkness to show for it.
“Even many other African countries like Egypt, Angola or even South Africa, with well over 50, 000 megawatts between them, never expended half of such amount to arrive at where they are today. Though, President Obasanjo’s government may not have single handedly exhausted the whole of the $60, 000 in generating power which, until 2015, only hovers between 2,000- 2, 500 megawatts, Nigerians generally, have a right to know how much of the said amount was actually spent, how it was spent and what was actually achieved with it by the successive regimes under those years of locusts.
“Moreover, such probes will lay to rest, once and for all, the wrongful notion that it is a taboo for past regimes to be made accountable for their deeds while they held sway. Accordingly, we support the Buhari’s regime in his quest and would admonish him not to leave any stone unturned in clearing the haze surrounding that era under his second coming.”
