Google Speech-to-Text API Automatic Transcription (Chirp). Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
00:00:00is very low. Number two,
00:00:04of there are, as I said before, during my last program,
00:00:08national development
00:00:11of is a collective responsibility. It's not government
00:00:14alone. There are what I call
00:00:17of jurisdictional of responsibilities. The judiciary
00:00:21has role to play, the legislative, the
00:00:25civil society, the academia,
00:00:29the media. all of us, but are you the
00:00:32biggest challenge is that
00:00:34of of before these people can participate? number one,
00:00:37government must create an environment for them to
00:00:41participate, they must not infringe, and
00:00:45that's my appeal to the APC
00:00:49man, please take this message to the
00:00:52government, create even level
00:00:56of environment of where
00:00:58of everybody can play their role. it makes for
00:01:01a more mature society, if we can do
00:01:05that, if we can also
00:01:08a invest in training and informing our
00:01:11of people so that they can make better decisions, iron
00:01:15nigeria can be
00:01:17of rebuild, nigeria can be restored, but it's still going to be lot
00:01:21of
00:01:22of work, thank you so much, thank
00:01:23you so much for your perspectives on the, i knew you were the balance in
00:01:27the
00:01:27of room, professor v is director general international institute
00:01:31for national transformation, we've also had uh Mr.
00:01:36of Samuel Wokocha who is the soudhist spokes person for the Obedient movement, he
00:01:39in joined us from our Abuja studio as well as Mr. Tunde bancanton who
00:01:43of is an APC chieftin, thank you so much gentlemen for your time this
00:01:47morning,
00:01:49of thank you so much, thank you so
00:01:51of much, when we return you Nigeria won that war,
00:01:55sorry, that battle, that legal battle, it's okay
00:01:59uh, We talk about power, yes,
00:02:02in a you know, I don't know how you're watching us, whether you are um connected to sol
00:02:05using power, whether is your so your self-generated
00:02:09power or bought power or whichever one, but we talk about the
00:02:13mandila power alternative when we
00:02:15return.
00:02:20of in
00:02:46Welcome of back, of so it's time to talk power and um, it's
00:02:50very crucial for every,
00:02:53everything is connected, just it's not political power, of
00:02:57course not, just say... Of course not,
00:03:01so we um, the Mabula Hydro electric power
00:03:05station is a long, delayed
00:03:083,050 megw project
00:03:11in taraba, and of course you know there has been the the
00:03:15legal battle, since you know for how
00:03:19long
00:03:19of now, and that project you kicked off since around the 80s
00:03:23and many falls, just like the
00:03:26ajakuta, ajakuta steel planted. as well
00:03:30mhm so um is this you know something
00:03:36this indeed that will
00:03:36maybe set we should be happy about, it you know in
00:03:40of motion for Nigerians to have you know the much
00:03:43needed
00:03:44of power of that you know the countries and businesses and you know
00:03:48everything is
00:03:49of revolving around power abso we have
00:03:52of in the studio this morning uh an engineer fellow
00:03:56of the academy of engineering and also fellow char
00:04:00and institute of power engineering,
00:04:03engineer, thank you for joining us this
00:04:11enthusiastic or you know
00:04:14of happy
00:04:14of about
00:04:15you know the outcome
00:04:16of this manbila hydropower project uh, i i
00:04:20think is beyond being enthusiastic, think i'm
00:04:23excited, think
00:04:25of i'm very happy, i think the federal government
00:04:29of Nigeria must be commended, the
00:04:32president um and commander in chief
00:04:35of the armed forces of Nigeria,
00:04:36president must be
00:04:40commendent for fighting this to a
00:04:44positive conclusion. I think also the
00:04:47honorable uh minister of justice and attorney general
00:04:52of of the federation who speare headed the
00:04:55case um should also be commended, can you imagine
00:04:59what will have? happen to us if we had lost $2 billion dollars, no
00:05:03$2.3
00:05:04of billion, 2.3 billion dollars, I mean that
00:05:08immediately wipes off so much from
00:05:11the um... um the
00:05:15the the the accounts the federation, so I think they
00:05:18must be commended, look, the the flip side of it is that
00:05:22they could have, and I say this with all sense of
00:05:26responsibility, they could have gone ahead
00:05:29to um, do deal with the guy, we'll pay
00:05:32you, let's let's let's let's discuss outside the
00:05:36court, we'll pay you 500 million or 1
00:05:39billion and you give us 200 million. That's
00:05:43what I mean has been our experience over the
00:05:46years, so um, you remember also the
00:05:49pi p and ID uh case
00:05:53that
00:05:53we that was opturned in 2003 and
00:05:57finally in 2026, these are these are things
00:06:01that Nigerians must appreciate um that
00:06:05this present government is doing rather than waste money
00:06:09on frivolous cases. second on
00:06:13on that, could could it have been a process issue abin
00:06:16issue? because I mean why go to court if there
00:06:19is no case? no, it's not a process, you know, everybody
00:06:23wants to scam the system, and and it's rather very
00:06:27unfortunate, everybody at every
00:06:30level, um, I had you before I came on
00:06:34on on on the set, you are talking about the traffic case
00:06:38here, I mean the traffic situation around here, that was not government.
00:06:43it was because Nigerians are impatient and
00:06:47and everybody wants to take advantage the other person and like I always
00:06:50say, look, the problem of Nigeria is not corruption, it is
00:06:54indiscipline and bureaucracy, what will it cost you to
00:06:58wait for one second a traffic
00:07:01um um light,
00:07:03you know to or or give way for somebody
00:07:07else to pass and and when you when you look at our
00:07:11attitude, as people
00:07:13we we need to reori reorient ourselves, if you if you
00:07:17if you go to a public place where there is lift and you want to enter the
00:07:21lift rather than people quewing up and entering
00:07:25gently you see them rushing in and then the first person who who gets
00:07:29there is pressing clos close the door again is you know
00:07:33mean he's not waiting for other people who are waiting
00:07:36with with him to come into the into the lift so these
00:07:40are problems that mean look the president is not going to come on on
00:07:44this road to to um direct
00:07:47traffic
00:07:53how where do we move from here now yes the
00:07:57the case is done with or is there any other thing that could come up this case
00:08:01is so how is this going to help our
00:08:05power situation if we have the 3000 plus
00:08:09megaws okay for years we have not been able to
00:08:13move forward on that hydropower is very
00:08:16significant for many reasons, one it
00:08:20is, mean the initial cost may be high, but
00:08:23operationally
00:08:25it is far far cheaper to run a hydropower, you don't have to be
00:08:29buying uh gas or diesel all the time to
00:08:32run a hydropower station, two, if you
00:08:36build that kind of hydropower, you can use it to mitigate
00:08:40against flooding in that. you can use it for
00:08:44agricultural benefits and so on and so forth. imagine
00:08:48uh today we have um about
00:08:5280% of our uh generation capacity
00:08:55is uh gas fired and you you
00:08:59know that recently um most them are not
00:09:03operating because um the fact that they were they are
00:09:07unable to pay um for the
00:09:09gas to the from from the gas suppliers,
00:09:13so this has caused a lot of
00:09:17problems, that is why we talk about
00:09:2013, 600 capacity or 16, who
00:09:24depending on who is whose whose records w we're
00:09:28looking at of generation capacity in Nigeria, and only about
00:09:324 to 5% is is is delivered to
00:09:35consumers uh due to all the
00:09:38atc andc uh
00:09:41losses, so This hydropower is a game changer, it
00:09:45is cheaper to run even to the consumer, you
00:09:48know, it's cheaper when you when you
00:09:52supply um power
00:09:54through um um hydropower, it's
00:09:58cheaper, it's um, it's environmentally
00:10:01friendly and so on and so for, we can go ahead, I mean go on and
00:10:05on and talk about uh the advantages of a
00:10:09hydroelectric power um...
00:10:13engineer, maybe so to the issue that you me
00:10:17asked, we know the viability and
00:10:20everything, all the wonderful ideas and all that you're talking
00:10:23about, funding a... always been an issue and then
00:10:26you know i talked about process the other time concept of
00:10:30this initiative started in 1972 from where we gathered, the whole
00:10:34idea of it, taking off the ground started sometime in the
00:10:3780s,
00:10:38and we are still talking about this same project
00:10:41now, what in your opinion are the major huddles
00:10:45now, mean we can say that the legal this legal victory is a
00:10:49significant bottleneck taking off, what in your
00:10:53opinion are the legal at? at the huddles, other
00:10:57huddles, this legally is taking out the way now, what are the huddles that you
00:11:01think this project must confront or confront this
00:11:04project from taking off now and from seeing the light of
00:11:07day? i will
00:11:11have to again commend the present
00:11:15government, because honestly funding
00:11:19is really not a problem in Nigeria if the will is
00:11:23there, remember, and i i i
00:11:28beg your pardon to to also um
00:11:32do reference that is slightly different. remember
00:11:35that the second niger bridge was on the drawing board for
00:11:39over 40 something years and eventually a government came
00:11:43and constructed that second it is going to be the same with this
00:11:47one and so when people are talking about the APC government they must
00:11:51also appreciate some the things that they have done you have said
00:11:551972, I was in form 2 in 1972, that's
00:11:59exactly 50, 54 years
00:12:02ago, I mean 50, yeah, 54 years ago, now this government has
00:12:06broken a jinx, one the problems is that when
00:12:10you start a process like this, people come to take advantage
00:12:14the system, and one the reasons why we could
00:12:18not find um um
00:12:21fund for it, it's because when you have case in court.
00:12:25concerning simple matter, people are
00:12:29scared to come into it because they don't know where
00:12:32the um the the the
00:12:36the uh pendulum will swing and so
00:12:38they are afraid now this project is very viable so there
00:12:45and is no reason why we should and any case you as you have seen recently the micro
00:12:49economic factors of of Nigeria has
00:12:52improved and people are,
00:12:55are are rushing to bring money to fund
00:12:59projects in Nigeria, because the project itself is very viable, so
00:13:03why will we find it difficult? I know,
00:13:07because I was in the pr, I mean, I was, I was at the top level
00:13:10the the par sector, so I know
00:13:14that there are so many organizations, so many countries that
00:13:18are willing
00:13:20to fund this project, because it is very viable, Nigeria
00:13:24requires up to... 40,00 megw, we are today
00:13:27playing around with only about 4 to 500 mahts, why will
00:13:31anybody not come? mean, it's like the case of uh uh you
00:13:35go to a place and people are not wearing shoes and then
00:13:39somebody comes and say oh i'm not going to advertise my shoes there because
00:13:43people are not wearing shoes and somebody comes to say oh
00:13:45send the 10 10 uh containers
00:13:49of of shoes because those people need need shoes and they will buy it so
00:13:53nigerians need power. and don't forget
00:13:57that right now there is tremendous uh
00:14:01demand increase because of what is happening
00:14:04because the fact that and and this is also another problem that I need to
00:14:08highlight, look when people say that you can take your
00:14:12Nira card abroad and and and and spend up to
00:14:1640,00, 50,00, 100 thousand depending on the bank that you
00:14:20use, imagine that you have factory and motor
00:14:23there is is is is... is fault and
00:14:27you have to wait, you have to apply to the bank and wait for
00:14:31foreign exchange, and then this week they have only, they can only
00:14:35get you $2,000 until six months before
00:14:39you can get uh $50,00, but today the the
00:14:43the the the company will take a Nira card, go abroad, buy
00:14:47that moto, fly it in, and in three days that
00:14:51production line
00:14:59trying to say that I'm trying to say that there will be
00:15:03increase in demand for power as as as
00:15:07as as the government talking about I'm talking about the hodles that this
00:15:10project has to come from there the hodle is
00:15:14principally the political will to
00:15:17execute it which we have seen that government is
00:15:21desirous there are those
00:15:23so who also wonder whether or not the we have the expertise in country or
00:15:27we have to import it, the issue that that
00:15:30existed that that brought this whole one uh whole conversation
00:15:34we're having right now is the same issue of expertise isn't it? as you
00:15:37said we need 40,000, we have maybe we are undulating around 4 to
00:15:414, you know the the truth of matter is that where this well
00:15:45there is a way um who are
00:15:49the people who built the the um the
00:15:52existing hydro power, some them are still in Nigeria
00:15:56today, those engineers are in the charter
00:16:00institute of power engineers, of course even
00:16:03abroad they use Nigerian
00:16:06expertise. even in the in the
00:16:09um in the in the
00:16:12nuclear uh power sector so the the
00:16:16the experts are within Nigeria and all over
00:16:20the country when we are ready the experts are
00:16:24available
00:16:25and I can assure you that Nigerian power engineers are
00:16:28competent and well trained some them have worked in pas
00:16:32stations abroad some them are trained abroad some them
00:16:35have helped to build. power stations, nuclear power
00:16:39stations and all kinds of things abroad, so the the problem of
00:16:43of um of
00:16:45um experties is really not there, mean look the world is
00:16:49a is a is a is a global village these days and
00:16:52what whatever we don't have we'll bring it in and just
00:16:56like we are exporting some of our experts to other parts the world,
00:17:00while we uh
00:17:01we were waiting for all of this legal issues to be solved
00:17:05and you know the man no,
00:17:09hydro no, electric, the legal issues have been, that's what I'm saying, I said while we were waiting, yes
00:17:13other sources of energy,
00:17:15you know, came up, we're talking about, we're talking about solar and wind
00:17:19energy now, uh, would you say that this um
00:17:23hydroelectric power is
00:17:27economically viable in terms of you
00:17:30know, if you look at the cost to do solar, lot
00:17:34of people were talking about solar houses, businesses
00:17:38handling that uh would you say it's still you know
00:17:41economically um it's cheaper or it's
00:17:45more expensive for us to still continue with it
00:17:49or we should explore this other no on the a large
00:17:52scale the hydro electric power
00:17:56system is cheaper on the long run and on the large
00:18:00scale look solar power you can use solar power for mini
00:18:03grid suitable for rural areas and the under
00:18:08that's faster
00:18:09for for the rural areas, for the underserved, don't forget
00:18:13that about 38.9%,
00:18:16according to the world bank of nigerians today don't have access
00:18:20to power,
00:18:22you know, and the initial cost of also uh
00:18:25using solar for single dwelling
00:18:28houses is also still high, it's coming
00:18:32down gradually, but on the long grown the
00:18:35hydropower when you're to spread it over a long
00:18:39area and and don't forget that Nigeria has a
00:18:42250 million people, you know, and like I said, the
00:18:46demand for power is increasing every day,
00:18:50every day, because um, the economy is
00:18:54getting better and therefore we're attracting foreign direct
00:18:57investment, the factories are kicking
00:19:00back to to operations, so we will need
00:19:04you know um a quantum leak. in that
00:19:08sector and so it will be and very
00:19:11environmentally friendly as well, like I said, once you start
00:19:15uh once once it is uh completed and you start
00:19:19running it, you don't need to buy gas every day, but there is a challenge of
00:19:22portability um of what portability, by
00:19:26that I mean just as you said solar is faster, just one infrastructure you took
00:19:30it to your house, but to get hydropower across you need a
00:19:34lot of infrastructure and all of those things and there are those who are wondering...
00:19:37you know is the technology that the
00:19:41mandilla power plant was designed around, is it still
00:19:45as viable as it was then? very very viable, there is, mean
00:19:48look, where did we build um, what's that the name the
00:19:52hydropower station in in
00:19:56um this place? we built it in 1960 something and it's still working
00:20:00very well, it's still look,
00:20:02what i'm talking about is the infrastructure to take power around? no, it's
00:20:05it's transmission line, okay? I mean that that's that's that in
00:20:09fact what what will happen is that once my billa is there will be
00:20:13able to use it uh imagine we're talking
00:20:16about uh
00:20:173,900 because it is
00:20:21in taraba state it will be easier to spread
00:20:25uh transmission lines in the northern part
00:20:29the country you know and leave this part
00:20:33to you know to to to what we are we are already
00:20:36using. imagine that Legos alone uses, I
00:20:40think, if I'm right, about 40% the power
00:20:43availability in Nigeria, you understand what I mean, and
00:20:47and and it will be shorter to spread ' transmission
00:20:50lines within that region as well, if you if you
00:20:54put 300 on that side and with the
00:20:58the 30 to 5,000 we we already have 500
00:21:02megws and then because of that also some
00:21:06the um
00:21:08um stranded power in in in in the
00:21:12existing power stations will be available, look at the
00:21:16kind of um development that is springing up around
00:21:20as is there, they don't have enough power, to run that. okay,
00:21:24now you domesticate, you just went to some other question that
00:21:28i have in mind, which is states now have the
00:21:31authority to produce their own electricity, to generate their own
00:21:35electricity, transmit and distribute and all of that. um, do you
00:21:39see that as huddle particularly concerning this? especially since as you
00:21:43said, it's in one state, but then there are many other states that may
00:21:46have to benefit from it. no, there's no holdle in that.
00:21:51um
00:21:51of course because because the electricity act is
00:21:55- too is
00:21:59has just been amended in 2003, some the states are just getting
00:22:02their acts together 2023,
00:22:062026, the in mean some states are just getting their acts together,
00:22:10the truth of matter is that it will take them some time
00:22:13to um um find a
00:22:17balance, but what they are going to be concentrate. on now like
00:22:21like I said is the on the south and those who are
00:22:24not uh presently enjoying pass
00:22:28supply so you can imagine a place uh where they
00:22:31don't have electricity supply now the government can build
00:22:35mini solar grids they can have their own local
00:22:39uh distribution system to supply those areas
00:22:43i know for instance that uh in Undu state there
00:22:46is a power station that is coming up in
00:22:50um or motor show ayol state and in several states they are doing
00:22:54many many hydro uh power stations and so on and so
00:22:58forth so what will happen is that those underserved areas
00:23:02those people who don't have presently have access you know
00:23:06the advantage is that all of those places if you
00:23:10many the reasons why the reasons why people want to come and set up
00:23:13factories in shagamu in in
00:23:17lagos is is because of electricity. so when you have
00:23:21states able to have their own grid and regulate
00:23:25their apart system, those people who have factories there
00:23:29don't have to come to lego, so if the if you if you are growing
00:23:33casava in area, you don't
00:23:36have to come and build your your factory in legos and transportation, the cost of
00:23:40transportation of moving the the uh raw materials
00:23:44which is for processing, because if you have
00:23:48power in those local areas. as those um
00:23:52um um goods can just
00:23:55move within less
00:23:57than 1 km and also if this mambila is designed in
00:24:01such a way that it will also help
00:24:04um um the agricultural output
00:24:08in that area irrigation and so on and so forth that's that's the
00:24:11design for the mambia power hydroelectric
00:24:15power uh system so that 24 and
00:24:19and and and if you if you notice if you go
00:24:22to um Abuja today we eat
00:24:25corn all throughout the year in
00:24:32most the corn is is is grown um
00:24:35with the irrigation system and so this
00:24:39is what we happen it will be a massive boost
00:24:43for agriculture it will be a massive boost for
00:24:46industrialization imagine that we we
00:24:5050% of our agricultural products
00:24:53perish when they are moved in uh
00:24:57vehicles that are not suitable all the way from the north
00:25:01to or from the from the east to to to this part the
00:25:05country for instance banana in two days
00:25:09those bananas have ripen ripened
00:25:12um tomato so if you have
00:25:16uh mambialla working in those areas and there is factory for.
00:25:20processing um tomato in that
00:25:22area exactly, exactly, and then for preservation as
00:25:26well, you can put your your refrigeration systems
00:25:30close to the areas where you have, I mean look, when we go
00:25:34abroad, you see fruits, they are there for six months and
00:25:38these fruits, flowers, you know, we can export flowers
00:25:41if we if we if we preserve them properly, okay, um,
00:25:45you have said that um, it would create lot of you
00:25:49' economic effect
00:25:53in in the yes and you also said if there is the political will to do
00:25:57it, i'm saying that
00:25:58it is there is okay so if it starts from
00:26:02start to finish, how long do you think it would take? well,
00:26:06i guess that that will be about three years, um,
00:26:10guess, that will be about three years, you know, but that's not a long
00:26:13time
00:26:20lot a lot is happening around here, like i said, we
00:26:23have um almost um
00:26:27electricity capacity of about 16, megawatts, in the
00:26:30interim government is doing a lot. for instance um
00:26:34paying legacy debts is one the reasons
00:26:37why you can see that uh production is going to be a
00:26:41bit higher now because um when you pay
00:26:45for gas that you have - that you for
00:26:48for for which you are owing so much the gas suppliers can supply and
00:26:52then production can can increase so yes it
00:26:56is three years but can you compare to 63
00:26:59years can you compare to? 63 years,
00:27:0366 years, that was I said for people that have
00:27:06waited, so waiting for another three years is not not is
00:27:09not as
00:27:16for Nigeria to learn from this, oh so many
00:27:19lessons Mabila Sunriser uh so
00:27:23so many lessons, one is that we should
00:27:27only um contract
00:27:30competent people, not um... not
00:27:33rentseakers, if if if those who
00:27:37are involved in this are rent
00:27:41are people who have the passion for
00:27:44Nigeria, they would not have done what they have done, look, look at the
00:27:48fallout, I mean now in the last two days, three days,
00:27:51we've been reading about top government officials
00:27:55that were implicated in in in in
00:27:59influencing and money was was trans fard
00:28:03around, I mean, that is, look, look, what do we want to do
00:28:07with all of this money? every Nigerian of our
00:28:11age, our passion should be to leave behind a
00:28:14legacy, a country that is working, so that our children will not
00:28:18cause us and that's what this government is doing.
00:28:22guess that somebody like presidentubu doesn't even
00:28:26need to do politics, you
00:28:29know, and and so many of our... leaders who are
00:28:33desirous of of
00:28:35of of creating change that will be lasting, and this
00:28:39is the lesson, that change must be lasting, it must not be
00:28:42superficial, and we must continue this fight
00:28:46against corruption, like I said, corruption is a
00:28:50byproduct of
00:29:01governments every... is looking at and talking
00:29:04about privatization, um, how
00:29:08significantly do
00:29:09you see that happening particularly in incrementally,
00:29:13particularly in the power sector? you said we need 40,000
00:29:17megawatts right now with this mandilla power
00:29:20plant, we don't even have up to 8,000 megaws and we need
00:29:2440, so that's some kind of call for
00:29:27privatization, how do you see that playing in in the
00:29:31privatization is?
00:29:32It's a is a process and it will eventually come to us
00:29:36and you have seen that um
00:29:40although we didn't get it quite right
00:29:43you know privatization has happened in in the power
00:29:46sector most the power plants today apart
00:29:49from uh um the hydro
00:29:53power station in um in um the north
00:29:57in um jeba i think
00:30:00yes there is not i mean all the other power stations are owned
00:30:04by individuals except the ones that by Niger
00:30:08delta power holding company limited which is jointly owned by all
00:30:12the mean by the federation all the states the federal government
00:30:15and so on and so forth but there are so many power plants now so
00:30:18privatization will eventually um catch up on
00:30:22us okay but also remember that that will
00:30:26happen when the sector is more
00:30:29productive when the sector becomes more productive. people will
00:30:33be encouraged to come and set up power plants today lot of people
00:30:37are setting up mini grids all over the
00:30:40the country you know and and they supply local
00:30:43areas so yes privatization will
00:30:46happen um and then don't forget that even
00:30:50in in in in in other countries when you when you
00:30:53build um solar power plant for your
00:30:56house uh you can sell the excess that you don't