Olu Agunloye
Agunloye to Obasanjo: Your claims on Mabilla project baseless, false, malicious
Dr. Olu Agunloye, former Minister of Power and Steel, has issued a strong and detailed rebuttal to the recent allegations against him regarding the Mambilla Power Project.
The latest allegation, which was made by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, accused Dr. Agunloye of mismanaging the project during his tenure from 1999 to 2003.
Dr. Agunloye has refuted these claims as baseless, false, and malicious, and has provided ample evidence to support his position.
He has released a comprehensive 53 paragraph, 14-page Statement, supported with 15 attachments in an 82-page document as an affidavit to the courts in Nigeria and France. He has also sent a copy of these documents to former President Obasanjo through his legal team.
In his response, Dr. Agunloye clarified the nature of the initial contract for the Mambilla Power Project, which was awarded as a Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) contract in May 2003 under his watch.
Under this model, the contractor, Messrs Sunrise Power and Transmission Company Limited (Sunrise), was responsible for sourcing funds and executing the project with its own funds. The Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) was not obliged to pay any amount to Sunrise.
Dr. Agunloye also explained that the investment required for Sunrise to construct the Mambilla hydroelectric project up to completion was estimated at a maximum of $6 billion by four Ministers of Power and former President Obasanjo before his tenure as Minister of Power.
He stated that the assertion by former President Obasanjo that he awarded a $6 billion contract (N800 billion in 2003) to Sunrise was inaccurate and misleading.
Dr. Agunloye further revealed that for 20 years, he was never questioned or interrogated about issuing any unauthorized Mambilla contract by any Nigerian President, including Chief Obasanjo. This was because they all knew that he did nothing wrong.
Dr. Agunloye also raised serious concerns about the change of contract model for the Mambilla Power Project after his tenure. Former President Obasanjo decided to split the Mambilla Hydropower Project into smaller components.
On the 28th of May 2007, a day before handing over power to President Umaru Yar’Adua, President Obasanjo changed the terms of the Mambilla project from Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT), which would not have required any investment from the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) to a fully funded FGN EPC contract.
