Energy
How Power Minister exposed Fashola’s four years failure
The blame trading of the All Progressives Congress government on the failure to deliver good governance has been shifted inward. Now, the managers of power appointed by President Muhammadu Buhari in his second tenure are beginning to see the failure of governance from within and from APC members.
Invariably, the current Minister of Power, Sale Mamman, has urged Nigerians to hold former Power minister, Babatunde Fashola, responsible for the failure to develop the power sector and ensure stable electricity supply in Nigeria despite the huge financial investment in the sector by President Muhammadu Buhari.
The media aide to the minister, Aaron Artimas, in a statement in Abuja, decried that despite the huge resources Buhari “poured” into the power ministry over four years, there has been no tangible result.
The minister in the statement declared: “All right-thinking Nigerians are aware that since assuming power in 2015, President Muhammadu Buhari has poured billions of naira and attracted huge foreign investments into the power sector with the aim of improving the generation and distribution of electricity to Nigerians.
“Nigerians should be asking why there was not much improvement in the sector after such concerted efforts by the government.”
Babatunde Fashola was minister of power between 2015 and 2019.
It was, however, gathered that the current power minister was using Fashola to ‘clean up’ a controversial appointment he made into the power sector that has been generating criticisms.
Report indicated that Artimas in December, appointed a former mid-level civil servant, Salihijo Ahmad, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Rural Electrification Agency (REA).
The new REA boss was said to be a former Level 12 public official at the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) which he quitted in 2018. The claim is that Ahmed has “vast experience”.
The experience of Ahmed is, however, being questioned by critics who said he is not qualified for the appointment. Stakeholders argued that Ahmed was favoured to satisfy his family links.
Report further indicated that Ahmed is the son of late Salihijo Mohammed Ahmed, a former managing director of Afri-Project Consortium. The late Ahmed was also a project consultant to the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) then headed by Buhari, who was appointed by late General Sani Abacha.
It was gathered that Artimas fired back at critics of Ahmed’s appointment that they are “wailers”.
