Google Speech-to-Text API Automatic Transcription (Chirp). Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
00:00:00supply in the country, many Nigerians expect the government to treat the
00:00:04of mambila hydropower project with almost
00:00:11of urgency. b, the story is
00:00:16of of yours, yeah, and um, i
00:00:20almost died in, in fact
00:00:22after i descended into that
00:00:25valley, i could barely
00:00:28breathe. "it was a police man's water that i
00:00:32grabbed, i quickly drank it, wow, you
00:00:36know, i we had traged, we got to point
00:00:40that the bikes could no longer, because
00:00:43it was quite steep, so we could no longer
00:00:47um use our bikes, i fell down two times on the bike as
00:00:51we were going there, but the cameraman refused to record
00:00:55it, but he was inexperienced cameraman,
00:00:58of okay, um, uh,
00:00:59who
00:01:00who who works in tarabad there, so if I had
00:01:03gone with cameraman from Lagos, they will have known that this part
00:01:07of the story, but he said, why should I be excited that my ogar
00:01:11fell and I will now be recording it,
00:01:13of he didn't know that, you
00:01:17know, they kept changing my
00:01:19bike, on the way
00:01:22there, that project site, the entire
00:01:26project site is more than five times the s of Legos
00:01:30State, oh really, yes, it's more
00:01:34than five
00:01:35of times the size of Lego
00:01:36a State because
00:01:37of it covers uh, few local governments, not just, I think
00:01:41about five local governments, okay,
00:01:43now at the peak
00:01:47of the raining season, at the peak
00:01:49of the raining season,
00:01:52that
00:01:55of of projects could give
00:01:56of us close to 4,00 megaw, but consistently...
00:02:00yeah, it will give us 3,500
00:02:04megw, it was after I went to this
00:02:07of do of this story that the BBC, got
00:02:11their
00:02:12of me reporter to also go
00:02:14of there to file the story, I wanted to make the
00:02:17point
00:02:19of that we are unserious as a country, this
00:02:23is the only way by which you can assess that dam site,
00:02:26meanwhile this project had been there, they've been
00:02:30talking about things since around 1980, yet no road
00:02:34of least to the
00:02:35place,
00:02:39the other, the other
00:02:41place that you can
00:02:44use, the other
00:02:46of area that you can use to access the place is the
00:02:50mararaba area, okay, yeah,
00:02:52of so but that
00:02:56road has not
00:02:58of been uh...
00:03:01constructed, i think the former governor constructed it up to point and
00:03:05stopped, that was years after i had gone there, they began
00:03:09building
00:03:10of road through the other side, that's mara about
00:03:17of you know um and but as i said
00:03:20that's there's no road for
00:03:24now, this project has been
00:03:27of delayed by a combination of... factors
00:03:30including of course this litigation,
00:03:33yeah, nobody will be ready to
00:03:36go ahead with a project about which
00:03:40there is legal, so
00:03:43now it has please god to let us
00:03:48of win that case, win this case, and
00:03:52hopefully we can find the
00:03:54funding,
00:03:56of because this project will create new s
00:04:00Oh yeah, it will really change the landscape. Do you know
00:04:04that despite the
00:04:06of potential that
00:04:09state, to give us up to
00:04:13400 megaws of electricity, they
00:04:17are not even connected to the national grid, really?
00:04:21Yes, at the time I went there, they
00:04:25had not been connected to the national grade, and manbila is such beautiful
00:04:29place. 'you think you are you are not in Nigeria, the
00:04:33weather is so cool, lot
00:04:34of our big people, and you see their cows, their
00:04:38cows are f, you think they are they are florida, the are cows from florida
00:04:41a lot of our big people they built houses
00:04:44there, they built houses there, so occasionally they
00:04:48go, even one like not only has house there, he
00:04:51had, he has heads of cattle, oh yeah, in that
00:04:54place, because you see the man billa
00:04:58cartoo only'. you would not think they are Nigerian,
00:05:02they are so big, they are so big,
00:05:05so I just hope that
00:05:09this project that we
00:05:11me can. brush this
00:05:13legal um battle aside,
00:05:17although heard that um leno
00:05:20adison is likely to appeal, well i don't
00:05:24know if variable will appeal,
00:05:27but i just hope that we can um put
00:05:31this matter to bed so that they can look in the direction of
00:05:35that um project and
00:05:394,00 megw will give us
00:05:44just about what we are getting today, because a consistent
00:05:48basis, we are between 3,000 to 4,000
00:05:51megah, we hardly get to 5,00 mahs,
00:05:55so which means that this project can help us to
00:05:59double, yeah, what we are generating
00:06:03today, well, I'm
00:06:06not an engineer or scientist, but I know
00:06:10that Ligos can't uh deal with
00:06:13can consume as much as nearly
00:06:171,00 megw, yeah, so 4,000
00:06:20megawatts is enough to power three, four states, if you see what i
00:06:24mean, especially in that part the world, we have enough sunshine,
00:06:28yeah, so what do we want, even
00:06:31now, what is the capacity of nigeria, what do
00:06:35we generate all over the country, what
00:06:39we are expecting to get out of money. yeah, it's almost the
00:06:43same that what what the whole country today nationally, and this
00:06:47mambia project, you know, is reflection the history of
00:06:51nigeria, of failed promises of an
00:06:55overcon concentrated state and
00:06:59and dropping the ball, yes of corruption,
00:07:02you know, of leadership, the lack of vision, it
00:07:06actually started in 1972 under
00:07:09gonon, so we are talking about 54 years ago, wow
00:07:13and then
00:07:15you know in 1982 the shagari government also was supposed to that was
00:07:19push and all that but they drop it again and what has what has been
00:07:22the major problem
00:07:24corruption because when what
00:07:28happens in this country is that when people bring a project that
00:07:32is supposed to s the interest of everybody yeah some people are behind
00:07:36this projet the first thing they think for is what comes to my
00:07:39pocket you can see that this has
00:07:42exposed the hypocrisy of many of our
00:07:45leaders, many them jumping up and down, talking about
00:07:49integrity, talking about this, you just discover that these are
00:07:53just
00:07:53you know leaders of rooks, bukanias, these are these
00:07:57are you know economic terrorists who are hiding under all
00:08:01sort of pretences, for instance in this
00:08:04case you know two things are
00:08:08striking, yeah the first one is that the contract
00:08:12was illegitimately awarded, the president said former
00:08:14president, said look, no minister
00:08:18can spend, can approve any project more than
00:08:2225 million, okay, except that is
00:08:25approval from f or him as president, this project is about 6
00:08:29billion dollars and the president said he was
00:08:32not aware yet, but the presidency was aware, the
00:08:36president was
00:08:37not aware, because the 500
00:08:40thousand, million
00:08:43dollars that was paid to
00:08:45somebody to you know the wife
00:08:49of yes this project was paid about more than three
00:08:53months before even the the project was approved that means
00:08:57that and of course this woman was not an official the
00:09:00government but the husband was
00:09:04in government in the presidency working on the ground to
00:09:08subvert national interest so this
00:09:13if you look at that money now in 2000 and in
00:09:172003 that's about $2 billion
00:09:20dollars one individual a serving government
00:09:23official and you are jumping up and down talking about
00:09:26credibility saying that you want fbi file what about the files that
00:09:30have been exposed about you in 2010 the US
00:09:34congress this same woman that was inducted $40 million
00:09:38dollars was transferred using offshore
00:09:41fronts. herself and her husband,
00:09:44alibatton corruption is there,
00:09:47siemens, so this man is the harrow head of corruption in
00:09:51Nigeria, but yes, so desperate to
00:09:55condemn people, to attack people, to pretend that is the most
00:09:58dignified and most qualified nigerian to lead this country,
00:10:02so I hope that, what you know people are
00:10:06saying, oh, yes, we have gained, because we can revive the project
00:10:10now, okay, but there are a lot of things that are... that we should not
00:10:14gloss over yes yeah the company that we are talking about was
00:10:17registered in 2001 then in
00:10:212023 you bedded for a projector that runs it to billion.
00:10:25two years experience and somebody government
00:10:29in the presidency is behind you to say this project must be given
00:10:32to
00:10:34you so you see when i read the whole thing i say even even
00:10:38the report the the report
00:10:40the um tribunal
00:10:44also said that the immediate
00:10:46past um attorney general of our
00:10:50country behaved like somebody
00:10:54walking against his own, yeah, country, his
00:10:57own country,
00:10:59the about man, the uh, that's um, what's his
00:11:03name again, so the
00:11:05report says that
00:11:09he acted like somebody working against his
00:11:13own country, so I don't, I
00:11:17don't understand
00:11:19in the
00:11:22the adisonya. It was
00:11:25established that money, this money is
00:11:29500 million was
00:11:32paid through paid in several
00:11:36tranches, yeah to the city bank
00:11:39account of Jennifer
00:11:42Douglas, the former wife of
00:11:45Achikua, you
00:11:46know, they were
00:11:49married and she was staying in Artiboka's
00:11:53Maryland home in the US. in fact she tried to
00:11:56sell that article's house, but because
00:12:00the investigations going on at that time, the transaction was blocked,
00:12:04now um, the tribunal
00:12:08said ad did not produced
00:12:11documents showing the underlying either
00:12:15payment, the exchange rate applied, the
00:12:18instructions from article or is eights, correspondence
00:12:22concerning the transaction or any record, establishing his
00:12:26commercial purpose, adison has said the
00:12:29discussions relating to the transaction were
00:12:32oral, and that more than two decades
00:12:35later, he no longer has access to any the
00:12:39written exchanges that might once have
00:12:42existed, but b non is saying,
00:12:46oh, you, article
00:12:49bakka address the allegations
00:12:52linking you to: the
00:12:56500 million
00:12:58payment made to
00:13:02sunrise power in connection with the mambialla because the
00:13:05report established a
00:13:08nexus between the award the
00:13:11contract and this payment that was
00:13:14made, it all happened around the same period so they
00:13:18could put two and two together to say look this this
00:13:22people they knew what they were doing you
00:13:25so no one has been able
00:13:29to establish something
00:13:33concrete, something in the rem of a primer fashi
00:13:37case, okay against the former
00:13:41number two, yes number two man, but
00:13:42at that time it was the person that obason
00:13:46entrusted the economy to, in fact he was the one who
00:13:50brought um erufai into
00:13:53government, okay? Yes, so
00:13:56now as far as we are
00:13:59concerned, if you
00:14:03are
00:14:04paying
00:14:08lobbyis in the US over
00:14:12matter that was decided more than 30 years ago,
00:14:16trying to establish that indeed had
00:14:19connection with a
00:14:22criminal um... drug
00:14:25matter despite the fact that all you can lay your
00:14:29hands upon is a civil
00:14:33for feature and civil
00:14:34for feature is not criminal nature,
00:14:38even the supreme court of our country has established
00:14:42that in in 2023 that
00:14:45civil forfisture is not criminal nature, it is not,
00:14:49but article and others are still pushing, pushing very
00:14:53hard to see whether... latinobu can be disqualified on
00:14:57account of that, but in your own case, your
00:15:00wife or your former
00:15:03wife, they had these payments
00:15:06into her
00:15:07account,
00:15:12you are now saying that they did not come, you are not
00:15:16indicted, you are not convicted and yeah, bolatinu was
00:15:20not convicted, but you can raise his matter, is
00:15:24that same way? that people like people will say,
00:15:26okay was right in
00:15:30asking you for explanations, because this
00:15:33person has at that time was married to you and living in your house.
00:15:38what what was the justification for paying to that woman? it's because she's
00:15:42the wife the vice president as at that time, they did not divorce until
00:15:452021, so the as a 2023 they were legally
00:15:49married, and in fact when they were having, yeah, 2003,
00:15:53so when they were having dispute over, the vice president wanted
00:15:57to retrieve our property, mean that must have been
00:16:00bought without funds, she was trying to ref those provides back, so there's no
00:16:04doubt, of course they could have directly to the vice president. that should be true a
00:16:08particular, but the name is carried article Jennifer
00:16:12article, so it's it's clear, that is the thing, that was why that link
00:16:16is there, no one is saying
00:16:17oh article, you receive money, but your wife at that time
00:16:21received money until today they've not been able
00:16:25to explain what that money was meant
00:16:28for, yeah, yeah, what that money, you see in this
00:16:32country, people come into government,
00:16:36suddenly they become extremely... rich, we do not ask
00:16:38questions, we do not ask
00:16:41questions, lot of our
00:16:43leaders, if we have the culture of asking
00:16:47questions, lot of our leaders will be in jail today, and we see it in
00:16:51other lands, they jail their formal leaders, oh yeah, even Israel,
00:16:55israel jailed one of his former prime minister, so it
00:16:59happened, we have to have that culture of asking
00:17:02question, you suddenly became rich, and i think that brought up that
00:17:06matter,
00:17:07we last have week that are that you will love a situation in
00:17:10which there are more there are more
00:17:14factories in Abuja because if we have more factories they will
00:17:18give jobs to people oh yeah
00:17:20it will they will help improve our economy he said
00:17:22what but is private jets all
00:17:26over the place by people owned by
00:17:30people who cannot explain the source their the source
00:17:33their the wealth that they have essentially because
00:17:37as he just said, we don't ask question, yes, they steal from us, they
00:17:41steal from us and we don't bother to ask
00:17:44questions, we don't borther to ask questions,
00:17:48this is lot of
00:18:24you are not a
00:18:27laborer, because laborer most the time,
00:18:31yeah, deserves more than his
00:18:34wages, in terms the physical extion. that goes
00:18:38into the work that he does, but there are people wear tie, they
00:18:42just use their brain, they use their brain and they do transactions
00:18:46that bring millions, by the stroke the pen, yeah,
00:18:49you can do a transaction that will end you millions, that is even
00:18:53legitimate, but lot the people that we are talking about, they don't do
00:18:57legitimate, they just steal
00:19:00in your face tealing, somebody was accused the other day of
00:19:04taking money from the president, money that I didn't. clear to anybody
00:19:08didn't he didn't say that oh i went to the president he gave me so so money for the
00:19:12state he took someone to to to to come and say
00:19:15that this was what happened the whole world would not have known
00:19:19yeah this is what happened is is the
00:19:22system permit somebody to be a school
00:19:26teacher some months ago and suddenly become a
00:19:30billionaire he he blows as music
00:19:33that's that's the lingo of musicians you know so...
00:19:38I just pray that in the fullness
00:19:42of time this project yeah will be able
00:19:46to to kick up because our generating
00:19:50capacity will improve and then
00:19:54the transmission capacity to hopefully as they continue to invest
00:19:57in new equipment because lot of those transmission lines are more than
00:20:0140 years old so as you continue to invest our
00:20:04transmission capacity to will. because the
00:20:08truth is that our generating
00:20:12capacity is in excess of 10,00
00:20:15mahs, but we cannot
00:20:19transmit even up to 600 mahz as we
00:20:22speak with never reach because uh those
00:20:26uh lines can take transmission they can't take
00:20:29more than lead to system collaps
00:20:33if we try it in fact if we try to do 5
00:20:37eight something we can succeed the next day you will see
00:20:41system failure willy, but
00:20:43I would have thought that late President Buhari who
00:20:47removed the electricity generation and and all
00:20:50that from the exclusive to the concurrent had
00:20:54made it easier, yeah, um, we can see
00:20:58the gains, some states are
00:21:01you know coming up gradually, it's not going to be automatic, but i think it's
00:21:05a very good start, and the mambiating we are talking about, it's not just for
00:21:09electricity, it's also for agriculture, okay, is the home
00:21:12for irrigation and all that of temperate
00:21:16avocado, apples, temperate,
00:21:20lettuce, coffee, it's like he has been
00:21:24there
00:21:24- place
00:21:28you know is the same mountain range from that place that goes all the
00:21:32way to obodu, oh really, yeah, it's the same mountain range,
00:21:36you know, and the weather is literally the same, although Mambia is
00:21:39colder than the mountain top of
00:21:43ubudu, okay, now that's the only place where you can grow tea in our
00:21:46country, yeah, there is the home the highland tea, I
00:21:50remember so is is is beautiful
00:21:54place that if you visit it for the first time you want to
00:21:58go back there you want to go back there
00:22:01okay then um let the debate continue in your
00:22:05part of town but uh no
00:22:09as far as we have broached it that the
00:22:12mambia uh plateau electricity
00:22:16project is one in waiting and If
00:22:20we get it right, perhaps our dark days
00:22:24regarding power would have been behind
00:22:27us. Okay, shall we breach the next
00:22:31story then? You know, political expediency
00:22:35means choosing action that's convenient or
00:22:38useful. In politics proper, it
00:22:41is a quick fix, if you ask me. The legal state chapter
00:22:45the all progressives congress, APC, had directed all
00:22:49it. candidate to remain in the country until the
00:22:52conclusion the 2027 elections. the
00:22:56streets chairman the party Cornelius Ojellabi issued the
00:23:00directive at the inauguration the Tinubu Hamzad campaign
00:23:04council at the party's secretariat here in Nikeja.
00:23:07Meanwhile, the director general the campaign Organization, Musulio
00:23:11Abanikoro has urged all party members to close
00:23:14ranks, maintain unity and remain loyal as
00:23:18campaigns have officially taken off. um
00:23:21while um, it's all hands on
00:23:25deck, yeah, I think there is a reason the
00:23:28APC took that
00:23:31decision, because it's not good for you to take
00:23:35anything for granted, oh yeah, don't assume
00:23:38that, oh, we have done everything, we have been in
00:23:42power, our political trend has been in passing, so we are home and dry,
00:23:46so we can, I, I think what happened in 2020.
00:23:50th is very good lesson, the APC was a bit
00:23:54relaxed, i just felt that look we
00:23:57have been winning, so there's
00:23:58no reason why we won't win, we not win there, if they have not
00:24:01increased the temple of campaign,
00:24:05the rally could have lost the government election, even though the candidate contest at that
00:24:09time was not known, was not popular,
00:24:12you know, so i think you also saw what happened in osum
00:24:15state, i think part the reasons why the APC loss
00:24:19was that? the APC was lay
00:24:21back, what is
00:24:24campaign? when you are talking about political campaign, it's not just about
00:24:28holding rallies, okay? it's not just about entertainment, dancing,
00:24:32bringing musician, you need to reach out to the
00:24:35people. look at what happened in in
00:24:37the kit state this last election, it has ever happened in the history of that, the
00:24:41gap, 380, go and
00:24:45see what the APC did in that state for
00:24:49months. they had what they call door to door campaign,
00:24:53they are what they call the APC street to street campaign,
00:24:56they were appealing to non party members, in fact
00:24:59there was an organisation
00:25:01called southwest independent campaign group talking
00:25:05to people with pampletes address to community, pampletes
00:25:09address to community from one area to the other talking to our people
00:25:12engaging them in the market places so and
00:25:15you could see the outcome 380
00:25:18versus Yeah, so if the APC thinks
00:25:22that oh uh we are going to win, they will be
00:25:26shocked, so if they don't campaign and just assume that we
00:25:30are there, big brother, they will be embarrassed, so I think that
00:25:33decision that was that have been taken is very good one, and I
00:25:37think for all the parties, this is the time for you to go out and meet
00:25:41the people, it's not just apc commissioners and house of
00:25:45assembly members even ministers, some ministers think oh, I'm not a
00:25:49politician. you are not a politician but you got there because of
00:25:52politics, some have not visited their villages and towns for the
00:25:56past two years, three years, they are not engaging
00:25:59people, see let tell you something. happened in
00:26:032019 all right, the vice former vice
00:26:06president professor chibajo, invited
00:26:10all the groups in the southwest about 65 them, every
00:26:14group that matter, mechanical station, artisants, opc, all
00:26:18them, they met, i was the one that was asked to help them invite those group, we met
00:26:22at, he now give them an assignment, look go on campaign for
00:26:26us, set up your own campaign organization,
00:26:29natation of mechanics, so you go and distry
00:26:33pamplets for your members every meeting you have on Tuesdays you do pamples and
00:26:37use it to mobilize your members 2023 they
00:26:41did the same thing I was there so all the grows that
00:26:45matter you know go and campaign you engage them
00:26:49and you could see the outcome so don't just assume that oh because we are in
00:26:52power oh we are APC we are a big party now the APC is
00:26:56saying that we are targeting that they are targeting 5 million if it is
00:27:00even they can't get up to 5 million they can get up to 3-4 million if they
00:27:04do they don't work very well yeah because what you have found over time is that people
00:27:08don't come out on
00:27:09the election day they get stay back say what is my business don't assume that with money you bring
00:27:13everybody out some people not go out especially in legos where 1000 do not
00:27:17mean much to lot of people so you need to find a
00:27:21strategy that
00:27:22you can
00:27:23you know put legos in the place of cano as a as
00:27:26major determinant of political of electoral
00:27:30uh outcome in Nigeria let go. can do it with the number of
00:27:34you registered voters, yeah, but over time, when is the election day,
00:27:38cano is always stronger than legos, which is not supposed to be, so asking them not
00:27:42to travel, i think it's a good step, because for some day we just go
00:27:46for all the day and then come back one week before the election, so go
00:27:50back to your rural area, go and mobilize your people,
00:27:53engage them, and and i think if the party can do this, the
00:27:57outcome will be favor to them, and i also advise all the parties
00:28:01that winner elections. not just about social media, talking on social media, you
00:28:05need to engage people,
00:28:06you need to convince them, faith organizations, mechanics
00:28:09association, all every every yeah, name them them,
00:28:13because democracy is about the people,
00:28:15yeah uh,
00:28:19because I'm sure you you were old enough to
00:28:22appreciate politic electionaring in the
00:28:25AG days, you may have been a small boy,
00:28:29but colorful, I'm talking about.
00:28:35Okay, I didn't see ADDs, okay, I, I, I saw it,
00:28:39I saw upn, all
00:28:43right, secondary public, second republic, I was already
00:28:47secondary school, yeah,
00:28:49so it means
00:28:53campaigning involves lot of work, yes,
00:28:57I think
00:28:58that
00:29:02um, we have said actually everything, the way
00:29:06they are thinking is let's not be
00:29:08complacent, this is not a time to go
00:29:12abroad and just be launching there, just making
00:29:15yourself happy, there's work to be
00:29:17done, i approve of
00:29:21this - this approach, because let's face it, they
00:29:25had issues in 2023, but what
00:29:29happened was not what was expected and the... mistakes that
00:29:33they made, okay, which they
00:29:36corrected, which they corrected, the
00:29:40president had even step in in terms of strategy, in terms
00:29:44of some big decisions that were taken before
00:29:47that governorship election, and see what happened the
00:29:51governorship election, some lose
00:29:54votes was more than two
00:29:57times the votes the people competed against
00:30:00him, meanwile in the presidential
00:30:04election, the party lost, so they bounce
00:30:07back, some the things they should have done back then including
00:30:11reconciling with people agrived as all the
00:30:15primaries, they didn't uh do that, so for the
00:30:18governorship election they had to then
00:30:22reach out, they reached out to the christian community because
00:30:26that electoral defeat hold
00:30:29largely to... push disenchantment
00:30:33with the uh christian, mean mostly muslim
00:30:37ticket, but they had to address that,
00:30:39you saw some
00:30:39wo even going to some churches and all that, so um, what
00:30:43the party leader lego is saying is we have to be
00:30:47serious, we have sacrifice and we
00:30:51have to stay here and work, so that's why he
00:30:54said no, this is not the time to travel, let's let's
00:30:57focus.