- As EFCC arraigns SANs for offering money to judges
Senior and junior workers unions’ action to protest the unbundling of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, is already taking its toll as power generation dropped to 1,580.6 megawatts, MW, in the early hours of yesterday.
Recall that generation capacity had inched up to 4,387MW on Friday, after crashing to 2,800MW prior to that from a peak of 5000MW due to gas pipeline vandalism, according to the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC. Data from the Nigerian Systems Operations Department of the Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, website,www.nsong.org, indicated that the situation had gone even worse, with generation peaking at 1,580.6MW as at 9.48am yesterday.
Although the Systems Operations did not give any reasons for the drastic drop, or which plant generated what, it however, indicated that the 1,580.6MW were distributed to the 11 electricity Distribution Companies, DISCOs, as follows: Ikeja: 237.09MW; Abuja: 181.77MW; Eko:173.87MW; Benin: 142.25MW; Enugu : 142.25 MW; Ibadan: 205.48MW; Jos: 86.93MW; Kano: 126.45MW; Kaduna: 126.4MMW; Port Harcourt: 102.74 MW; and Yola: 55.32 MW.
The NNPC workers had threatened that the latest strike will affect every economic activity, as there will be no loading of petroleum products at the depots , a development that has escalated current fuel shortages, while also cutting gas supply.
Majority of Nigeria’s power plants whether on-grid or off-grid, depend on gas supply from the Nigeria Gas Company, a subsidiary of NNPC, to fuel the plants. With NNPC workers making good its threat to cut off gas supply and suspend lifting of petroleum products, even to power homes and businesses through private generators will become more difficult and at premium costs.
Even without the current crisis, many of the generating plants had been having issues, especially with plant upgrades and re-tooling, which are being frustrated by the scarcity of foreign exchange and inability to import the necessary tools. For instance, the Egbin Power Plc, Nigeria’s largest plant with a capacity of 1320MW, could barely generate up to 900MW last week, which a top management source attributed to gas shortages occasioned by pipeline vandalism.
According to the source, “For over a week now, our generation has been between 800mw and 900mw against 1100megawatts recorded two weeks ago. As a result of this shortfall, it is expected that the power transmitted to the distribution companies would be rationalised.”
Meanwhile, when Vanguard visited some areas in the Lagos metropolis, it was learnt that residents hardly get more than three hours of power supply daily. At Ajegunle, Ifelodu, Apapa, Amukoko, Awodi-ora, Festac, Agbara, Ile-Ipo, Badagry, Victoria Island, Ikeja, Berger, Ejigbo, residents complained of deteriorating supply of power to their environs.
A woman who identified herself as Mrs, Aisha at Ojo Road, Ajeginle, said: “From experience over the years, the peculiarity of power outage in the country will be for a long time, considering how bad the systems were managed by the Federal Government prior the privitisation of these assets.
At Orile axis, Mr. Brown Idewo said: “For the past two months in this area, we cannot be assured of receiving power for two hours in a day.
“Currently, we are yet to receive pre-paid meters in this part of the state. We are seriously crying for better power supply regardless of the bills we are subjected to pay.”
The story is the same even in Victoria Island, as consumers revealed they receive power supply for about five hours daily. Some of them who spoke to Vanguard said that the development has become worrisome as such delivery could barely meet their demands.
At Awodi-ora, the situation was fair, as residents claimed to receive up to six to eight hours of power supply in a day.
According to Mrs Maryjean Robert, “Recently we have been receiving favourable supply of power ranging from six to eight hours in a day.”
In the meantime, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on Wednesday arraigned two Senior Advocates of Nigeria, Mr. Rickey Tarfa and Dr. Joseph Nwobike, for allegedly offering gratification to, judges, who are public officers.
The offence is said to be contrary to section 64 (1) of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, No.11, 2011.
While Tarfa was arraigned on 27 counts before Justice A.A. Akintoye of a Lagos State High Court in Igbosere, Nwobike was arraigned on five counts before Justice Raliat Adebiyi of the same court.
In the charge presented to the court by the EFCC prosecutor, who handled both cases, Rotimi Oyedepo, Tarfa was accused of transferring a total of N5.3m to Justice Hyeladzira Nganjiwa of the Federal High Court between June 27, 2012 and December 23, 2014 in order to allegedly compromise the judge.
Tarfa was also accused of refusing to declare his assets to the anti-graft agency on February 10, contrary to the provisions of Section 27(3)(c) of the EFCC (Establishment) Act, 2004.
Among other things, the EFCC also charged Tarfa with the offence of giving false information to the anti-graft agency by allegedly giving his age as 43 when he was indeed 54, an act the EFCC claimed to be an offence under section 38(2) (a) of the EFCC (Establishment) Act, 2004.
The senior advocate, however, pleaded not guilty to the entire 27 counts.
His lawyer, Chief Bolaji Ayorinde (SAN), urged the court to admit him to bail on self recognisance, saying that his client was already enjoying bail on the same condition from Justice Aishat Opesanwo of the same court, where he was last month arraigned on two counts of willful obstruction of justice.
Ayorinde pointed out that Tarfa was also enjoying an administrative bail granted him by the EFCC. He said Tarfa is a senior member of the Bar, who had no previous crime records.
But Oyedepo opposed the bail on the grounds that the allegations in the fresh 27 counts before Justice Akintoye were different from the two counts before Justice Opesanwo.
While conceding that bail was at the discretion of the judge, Oyedepo urged Justice Akintoye to impose conditions that will ensure that Tarfa attended his trial.
After hearing the parties out, Justice Akintoye rose for a few minutes, and when she later returned she admitted Tarfa to bail on self recognisance and adjourned till March 22, 2016 for commencement of trial.
In the charge before Justice Adebiyi, Nwobike was accused of offering N750,000 gratification to Justice Mohammed Yunusa and N300,000 to Justice Nganjiwa.
He was accused of “attempting to pervert the course of Justice contrary to section 97 (3) of The Criminal Law of Lagos State No. 11, 2011.”
The senior advocate pleaded not guilty to all the five counts.
The EFCC did not oppose the bail application filed by Nwobike’s lawyer, Abiodun Layonu (SAN).
Justice Raliat granted Nwobike bail on self recognizance and adjourned till April 11 for trial.
Vanguard with additional report from Upshot
