I never authorised Agunloye to award $6bn Mambilla contract to Sunrise — Obasanjo

VANGUARD

Obasanjo, weekend, challenged the former Minister of Power and Steel, Mr Olu Agunloye, to tell Nigerians where he derived the authority to award a $6 billion contract to Sunrise Power and Transmission Ltd in respect of the Mambilla Hydropower Project in 2003.

Sunrise Power is currently in arbitration with Nigeria at the International Chamber of Commerce, ICC, Paris, France, over an alleged breach of contract by the federal government.

In the first arbitration, Sunrise is asking for a compensation of $2.3 billion, claiming it had spent millions of dollars on financial and legal consultants before the contract was jettisoned.

In the second one, the company is asking for a $400 million settlement being the terms of the agreement it entered with the federal government in 2020 to end the arbitration.

Nigeria is fighting the claims on the grounds that Agunloye, who suspiciously awarded the contract one week to the end of his tenure as power minister in 2003, acted illegally.

TheCable understands that Agunloye and some officials of the Ministry of Justice have been quizzed over the Sunrise affair and may soon be charged to court.

In an interview with TheCable at the weekend, Obasanjo stringently denied authorising Agunloye to commit Nigeria to the $6 billion “build, operate and transfer” contract.

The former President said: “When I was president, no minister had the power to approve more than N25 million without express presidential consent. It was impossible for Agunloye to commit my government to a $6 billion project without my permission and I did not give him any permission.” The former president challenged Agunloye to explain where he got the power and authority.

Obasanjo said: “If a commission of inquiry is set up today to investigate the matter, I am ready to testify. I do not even need to testify because all the records are there. I never approved it.

“When he presented his memo to the federal executive council (on May 21, 2003), I was surprised because he had previously discussed it with me and I had told him to jettison the idea, that I had other ideas on how the power sector would be restructured and funded.