The Nigeria Governors’ Forum rejected the sale of 10 power facilities and filed a lawsuit to halt the Federal Government’s plan to privatize the plants.
The NGF said that its lawyers had taken action to stop the Buhari administration from selling the power plants that are part of the National Integrated Power Projects.
The management of the NIPPs is carried out by the electricity generation and distribution firm known as the Niger Delta Power Holding Company, which is owned by federal, state, and local government bodies.
Following a teleconference meeting on Tuesday, the 36 state governors, led by their chairman, Governor Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State, issued a statement on Wednesday, November 23, 2022, expressing their disapproval of the FG’s action.
The statement partly read: “The Forum, following its advocacy that the proposed privatisation of 10 National Integrated Power Projects (NIPPs) by the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) should be stopped, instructed its lawyers to approach the Federal High Court which, at present has issued a court order restraining all the parties in the suit from taking any step or action that will make or render the outcome of the motion on notice seeking for interlocutory injunction nugatory.
“The effect of the order of the court is that respondents cannot proceed with the proposed sale of the power plants belonging to the Niger Delta Power Holding Company Limited (NDPHCL) until the hearing and determination of the motion on notice for interlocutory injunction.”
From the report, in April 2021, the National Council on Privatisation approved the adoption of a fast-track strategy for the privatisation of 5 power plants listed as Geregu, Omotosho, Olorunsogo, Calabar and Benin-Ihovbor t
The Director General, of the Bureau of Public Enterprises, Mr Alex Okoh, announced in Abuja at the Investor Pre-bid Conference the privatisation of the five plants and gave the names of 16 pre-qualified bidding firms.
