President Umaru Yar’Adua is listed to appear before the House of Representatives Committee on Power and Steel to explain his take on the $10 billion former President Olusegun Obasanjo spent on power supply between 1999 and 2007.
Obasanjo and Speaker Dimeji Bankole are also expected to appear before the committee, whose Chairman, Ndudi Godwin Elumelu, said on Thursday in Abuja that Yar’Adua is being invited because he was the first person to reveal the expenditure.
Yar’Adua did in January when he hosted World Bank Vice President (Africa), Oby Ezekwesili.
Bankole would appear for claiming that $16 billion, not $10 billion, was the total amount spent on power reforms by the Obasanjo administration.
Elumelu said the committee has received over 50 memoranda, three of them from Governors Liyel Imoke (Cross River), Babangida Aliyu (Niger), and Namadi Sambo (Kaduna).
He expressed regret that key government functionaries, and establishments, including the Ministry of Power (Energy), are yet to send in their memoranda, weeks after they were notified of the investigation.
The committee may compel government officials and other interested parties to appear before it, he warned.
Elumelu also regretted that most of the 50 memoranda received so far have failed to explain how $10 billion or $16 billion was spent, but instead are educating the committee on how to solve the problem of electricity supply.
He stated the committee’s determination to get to the bottom of the rot in the power sector, so as to enable the House take appropriate legislative action that would make the system more efficient.
The first two days of the public hearing, beginning next Tuesday, are allotted to the likes of former Senate and House Chairmen on Power, Ministers, Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Armed Forces, and Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN).