Jonathan should have sold DisCos to us for $1, says investor

Idahosa Okunbo, a director at Integrated Energy Distribution and Marketing Ltd., core investor in Yola and Ibadan power distribution companies, says the federal government under Goodluck Jonathan should have sold the DisCos for $1.

Okunbo, who is also an oil magnate and commercial pilot, added that the monies spent on purchasing the DisCos should have been used in revamping the distribution chain.

Speaking with Osasu Igbinedion on The Osasu Show, Okunbo said he was still paying debts on the Yola DisCo, which was handed over to the federal government two years ago.

“We are paying the loan in Yola, we are also paying interest in Yola, and Yola has already been handed over to government two years ago, and we as investors have not been refunded. Is that how to do business? Is that how to encourage investors to do business in Nigeria?

“Federal government has not met most of the conditions under which we should operate as a distribution company, and the best thing that can happen today to us or to me is for the government to take back the assets and pay us back our money.

“I am not a thief, I have been servicing debts from my hard-earned money, servicing debts of a business that is not working. We carry staff that we are constantly paying salary. Today we now collect more money than federal government has ever collected in those distribution companies.

“We brought business out of those entities; In fact, those assets should have been sold for $1, and let us now invest our money that we paid to the federal government at so much. How can you have sold these assets to Nigerians in dollars when the assets are in naira?”

He added that former president Goodluck Jonathan declined approval of $200 billion for the development of Niger Delta.

“It is not only about the arms struggle, its about intellectual struggle; I have done a movie (Black November). What was my drive in sponsoring that movie? I beleived I had to give something back to that region, and I was fighting my cause intellectually.

“Unfortunately, the president Jonathan was also from our area. I told him plainly, listen, if we have $200 million for the development of the Niger Delta, $50 billion will give us three major refineries, three petroleum megaplants that will employ the youths.

“And we would also be able to refine the oil that is coming from our land, we would give value to the oil, and proper infrastructural development to our land. I was disappointed, I was completely deflated when the former president told me its a laudable idea but Niger Delta is not the only region in Nigeria.”