A former Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Obong Victor Attah, has accused ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo of halting his administration’s efforts to distribute electricity directly to residents of the state.
Naija News reports that Attah disclosed that from 1999 to 2007, he built a 191-megawatt power station to address Akwa Ibom’s electricity challenges.
However, Obasanjo allegedly instructed that the electricity generated by the plant be transferred to the national grid, thereby denying the state the ability to manage its own power supply.
Speaking on Inside Sources with Laolu Akande, a socio-political programme on Channels Television, Attah expressed frustration over the move, which he described as a setback to the state’s development.
The former governor emphasized the importance of empowering federating units to manage their developmental initiatives, including energy generation and distribution.
Attah criticized Nigeria’s current constitutional arrangement, describing it as authoritarian and incapable of addressing the country’s challenges.
The octogenarian called for restructuring the country to grant federating units more autonomy, allowing them to operate as equals rather than subordinates to the central government.
The ex-governor said, “I decided I want to give the 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 applauded the amendment of the Electricity Act 2023 which significantly opened up the space for states to step into the power space, generate and distribute electricity as well as regulate 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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