Jonathan ‘made the biggest investment’ in power sector

Godknows Igali, former permanent secretary of the ministry of power, says ex-President Goodluck Jonathan made the “biggest investment” in power sector.

He said this while speaking with Gatefield TV, an online platform.

Igali said before leaving office, the former president completed most of the power projects that were abandoned.

He said before the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) government came into power, there was no investment in terms of improving power generation “in spite of the growing economy and energy demands of the Nigerians”.

“Before that, for about 25 or 30 years, not a single power plant was built in the country. Which means that while the population was increasing and the economy was getting bigger, there was no value addition in terms of building increased power production,” he said.

“For a period of 20 years, not one single engineer was recruited into a sector that is largely an engineering sector. In fact even those who climbed poles had all aged.”

He also spoke about the privatisation plan of fomer President Olusegun Obasanjo which was probed by the national assembly under the administration of late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.

“When president Yar’Adua unfortunately passed on, Jonathan came in and ordered the immediate resumption of the NIPP projects,” Igali said.

“By the time he (Jonathan) was leaving in 2015, out of the ten power plants whose construction had stopped totally, were almost completed.

“In addition, they started a new power plant 215MW in Kaduna, which was about 80 percent completed; the Zungeru power plant conceived by the late Sardauna of Sokoto, Ahmadu Bello which was also initiated by Jonathan and 40 per cent completed by the time he was leaving office.

“The Gurara dam of 30MW was completed and the transmission lines had gotten up to Mando to target the industrial sector in Kaduna and the Kashimbilla dam which was conceived by president Obasanjo as an ecological project but redesigned to generate about 40MW of power targeting Benue and Taraba states.”