Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said no member of his
cabinet had the authority to approve more than N25 million without his consent
when he was leading the country between 1999 and 2007.
Obasanjo said this in an exclusive interview with TheCable,
while challenging the former minister of power and steel, Olu Agunloye, where
he got the authority to award $6 billion contract to Sunrise Power and
Transmission Ltd in respect of the Mambilla Hydropower Project in 2003.
Sunrise Power is currently in arbitration with Nigeria at
the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), Paris, France, over an alleged
breach of contract by the federal government.
In the first arbitration, Sunrise demanded a compensation of
$2.3 billion, claiming it had spent millions of dollars on financial and legal
consultants before the contract was jettisoned.
In the second one, the company asked for a $400 million
settlement being the terms of the agreement it entered with the federal
government in 2020 to end the arbitration.
Reacting to this at the weekend with TheCable, Obasanjo
said, “When I was president, no minister had the power to approve more than N25
million without express presidential consent.
“It was impossible for Agunloye to commit my government to a
$6 billion project without my permission and I did not give him any
permission.”
The ex-president further said, “If a commission of inquiry
is set up today to investigate the matter, I am ready to testify. I do not even
need to testify because all the records are there. I never approved it.”
THE MAMBILLA DISPUTE
Sunrise had on October 10, 2017 taken Nigeria to arbitration
for “breach of contract” in relation to the agreement to construct the 3,050MW
plant in Mambilla, Taraba state.
Nigerian authorities insist that the contract award was
irregular and did not pass through due process.
Agunloye issued a letter awarding the contract a day after
the federal cabinet reportedly told him to step down his request for approval
and explore other sources of funding for the project.
In his letter to Sunrise, Agunloye also listed
pre-conditions for the contract to be consummated and none was met by the firm.
But Sunrise initiated legal action when a bid process for
the civil works was announced by the federal government in 2007 and a series of
litigation has since stalled the project.
To get the project off the ground, the federal government
had attempted to settle the arbitration in 2020 with a compensation offer of
$200 million but a lack of funds is believed to have truncated it.
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