How Obasanjo Stopped Me From Distributing Electricity To Akwa Ibom After I Built Power Plant – Former Governor Attah

Obong Victor Attah, a former Governor of Akwa Ibom State, claims that ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo prevented him from providing electricity to the South-South state’s residents after he built a 191 megawatt power station.

Attah, who was Akwa Ibom governor from May 1999 to May 2007, when Obasanjo was Nigeria’s legally elected president, said that the then-president directed that electricity generated by the Akwa Ibom power plant be added to the national grid.

The octogenarian appeared on the Friday episode of Inside Sources with Laolu Akande, a socio-political show on Channels Television.

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Attah criticised the country’s current constitution and arrangement, stating that a new constitution and federal arrangement would grant federating entities the authority to be coordinators rather than subordinates.

He said what we have now is an authoritarian system called the Constitution because it was imposed by the military. “We need to go back to an agreeable constitution by our founding fathers at Independence,” he said, expressing disappointment that President Bola Tinubu has not started moves to make Nigeria have true federalism.

The ex-governor said, “I decided I want to give Akwa Ibom state power. The president said no, the Federal Government is providing power for the country. I said: ‘I want to give Akwa Ibom State power’ and then I succeeded in building that power station. The president came and I saw that he was happy about what I was doing. He commissioned the power station but went back to Abuja and brought a law that if you generate, you cannot distribute it.

“I used Akwa Ibom money (to build the plant) but I cannot distribute power to Akwa Ibom people? I have to put in the National Grid that is failing all the time. That was how that ended.

“So, Akwa Ibom State, like every other state doesn’t have 24-hour constant power which was my dream for Akwa Ibom. If I had had it done, several other states would have followed suit.

“Interesting enough, only this morning I was reading the papers and I heard where our respected Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said we should decentralise power generation and distribution. That’s what I was trying to do but because of the faulty federal arrangement that we have I was stopped. It should not happen in a federal arrangement.”

Attah said he was a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at the time so Obasanjo’s disapproval wasn’t about party politics but about a faulty federal arrangement.

He said, “It does not say much about party politics; it says much about the constitution that we have — the non-federal constitution that we have. If we have a true federal constitution it would never have happened. I would have built my power station. Whatever party I belong to won’t have mattered. What is fundamentally wrong with us is the nature of the constitution that we have today — it is not a federal constitution and unless and until we go federal, we will not make progress.

“We generate power and put it in the national grid – the inefficient national grid that is always collapsing…Every kobo that was spent was in Akwa Ibom money to build that power station but a faulty constitution and constitutional arrangement makes it possible for a president to say even this power station, I’m taking it from you and I’m putting it in the national grid.”

Attah commended the amendment of the Electricity Act 2023 which considerably opened up the space for states to step into the power arena, generate and distribute electricity as well as manage the sector in their respective states.

“Now that the new law has been brought out, our governor (Umo Eno) is working very hard to make sure that we now have an Akwa Ibom power company that not only generate but distribute power to the people,” he said.

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