In a bold revelation, former Minister of National Planning under President Goodluck Jonathan, Dr. Shamsuddeen Usman, has admitted that top government officials and political figures manipulated the 2013 privatisation of Nigeria’s power assets for personal benefit.
Speaking in Abuja during the 26th October Lecture of the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE), Usman disclosed that key players in the Jonathan administration jostled for shares in the power generation (GENCOs) and distribution (DISCOs) companies under the guise of reforming the sector.
“I was part of the power privatisation and I am not going to extricate myself. It is a collective responsibility, and I am not comfortable with the speed at which we rushed that exercise,” the former minister confessed.
Usman, who was the first Director General of the Technical Committee on Privatisation and Commercialisation (TCPC), lamented the deviation from international best practices during the exercise. He revealed that unlike earlier privatisations, where strict codes of conduct prevented officials from participating as buyers, the electricity sector reform was riddled with insider interests.
“As at that time [1988], we had the Code of Conduct that ensured that no member of the management or the board could buy any of the assets that we were selling. The electricity privatisation, unfortunately, was a different story.”
He noted that political considerations, rather than technical competence or financial capacity, largely determined who got access to the lucrative power companies.
When asked to name those who benefited from the rigged process, Usman declined, saying, “I will not mention names.”
He concluded that many of the ongoing challenges in the power sector can be directly traced to the flawed process, which placed critical infrastructure in the hands of individuals who lacked the capacity or intent to improve the system.