By Nurat Uthman
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has stated that during his tenure as the leader of Nigeria from 1999 to 2007, no member of his cabinet had the authority to approve more than N25 million without his consent.
He made this statement in an exclusive interview with TheCable while questioning former Minister of Power and Steel, Olu Agunloye, about the authority he had to award a $6 billion contract to Sunrise Power and Transmission Ltd for the Mambilla Hydropower Project in 2003.
Sunrise Power is currently engaged in arbitration with Nigeria at the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in Paris, France, over an alleged breach of contract by the federal government.
In the first arbitration, Sunrise demanded $2.3 billion in compensation, claiming that it had spent millions of dollars on financial and legal consultants before the contract was terminated.
In the second arbitration, the company sought a $400 million settlement based on the terms of the agreement it reached with the federal government in 2020 to settle the dispute.
In response to these developments, Obasanjo stated in his interview with TheCable that no minister had the authority to approve more than N25 million without explicit presidential consent during his presidency. He emphasized that it would have been impossible for Agunloye to commit his government to a $6 billion project without his permission, as he did not grant him any authorization.
The former president further expressed his readiness to testify if a commission of inquiry is established to investigate the matter.
He stated that he does not even need to testify because all the records are available, and he maintains that he never approved the project.
