By Bart Nnaji
former Minister of Power, Professor Bart Nnaji, has explained why he resigned his post as the Professor of Industrial Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh in the United States and Director of e-Design of the United States National Science Foundation to lead a team of Nigerians to set up a 188-megawatt power plant in Aba and an electricity distribution company, also in Aba, Abia State.
Speaking at the 58th birthday of Abia State governor Okezie Ikpeazu this afternoon at the governor’s country home in Umuoboakwa, Obingwa Local Government Area, Professor Nnaji gave two reasons for the decision.
They are the experience he had when he purchased a large expanse of land in Emene to build a company to manufacture vehicle spare parts, including auto engines, only to discover that it couldn’t take off because of the poor electricity situation in the Southeast in particular and the country in general.
The second reason is the request from the then Nigerian Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, now the World Trade Organisation (WTO), and the then World Bank President, Dr James Wolfohnson, to build a power 50MW plant in Aba to assist both big and small manufacturers.
“They made the request in 2004 after visiting Aba and saw the enormous economic and technological potential of this city, the headquarters of indigenous technology in Nigeria”, explained the former minister, “but was being paralysed by poor electricity.
“Both Dr Okonjo-Iweala and Dr Wolfohnson asked me to consider building this power plant because a team of Nigerian engineers I led had successfully built a 22MW emergency power plant in Abuja in 2001 to supply uninterrupted electricity to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation headquarters in Abuja, State House, Central Bank and the Abuja Business District.
“What they didn’t know is that I was already reflecting over how I could help ameliorate the terrible electricity situation in the Southeast.
“We can say without fear of contradiction that the request from Okonjo-Iweala and Wolfohnson was a divine intervention”.
Nnaji said that the provision of basic infrastructure like electricity in the Southeast and elsewhere in Igboland would trigger the beginning of a development miracle from which all Nigerians would benefit.
It is imperative, he stated, that the Igbo and all the people of the former Eastern Region regain the development momentum of the First Republic during which the government and people built the University of Nigeria, African Continental Bank, Nigeria Cement Company at Nkalagu in today’s Ebonyi State, the Nigersteel company, Nigergas, Hotel Presidential and many others which enabled the region to become the fastest developing place in the world in the mid-1960s.
The industrial engineering professor said that if he had located the Geometric Power plant in Ikeja Industrial Estate or Ilupeju Industrial Layout in Lagos State or in the Agbara Estate in Ogun State, he would have got faster return on investment, but Igboland “which is in dire need of such infrastructure would continue to suffer”.