A former member of the eighth Nigerian Senate and social critic, Shehu Sani, has berated President Muhammadu Buhari for deciding to sell five Nigeria’s power plants less than six months before the end of his tenure in office.
The Nigerian government and the governors of the 36 states of the federation agreed to sell five power plants under the National Integrated Power Projects (NIPP) and to use the proceeds to fund the 2023 budget.
This is coming after over two years of disputes and legal battles over the sale of the NIPP plants managed by the Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPH).
“The expectation (of BPE) in the fiscal plan for 2023 is N260bn, and the critical assets we are looking at are the power assets. Five of the NIPP plants; incidentally, we are reaching some understanding with the state governors for selling those five power plants,” Director General of the Bureau of Public Enterprises, Alex Okoh said while speaking with newsmen.
Reacting to the agreement, Senator Sani who represented Kaduna Central Senatorial District in the 8th Assembly said, “After piling up N44 trillion debt;With less than Six months to go, the Buhari led FG wants to sell our five power plants in order to raise N260 billion in the name of funding the 2023 budget.
“When they want to sell public assets to themselves, they will hide themselves and send their business friends to ‘bid’. After buying the assets, they will appoint their children, Brothers or inlaws to chair the Board. After 5 years or more, the identity of the real buyer will be known.”
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