Details Emerge Indicating Bart Nnaji Was Forced To Resign Due To Ethical Challenges On His Part

His resignation was made known in a terse message from the Presidency, which indicated that President Jonathan has accepted the resignation.

The resignation came at a time the power sector was showing some improvement in power delivery, with electricity production reaching levels of over 4000 megawatts it had not reached in a decade.

A statement by Dr Reuben Abati, the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, said the disengagement of Nnaji was with immediate effect.



Abati said Jonathan thanked Nnaji for his services to the nation under the present administration and wished him well in his future endeavours.

P.M. NEWS however gathered that the Minister may have been caught in an ethical web over the ongoing privatisation in the power sector.

As was gathered, some companies in which the Minister have interest in bid for some of the power plants scheduled for privatisation, an action considered as a clear conflict of interest on his part.

An exclusive report by BusinessDay, yesterday had indicated that Nnaji has a direct interest in a consortium that submitted bid for the Afam power plant, one of the generating plants put up for privatisation by the Federal Government.

Federal Government had just approved N500 million for rehabilitation of the plant with installed capacity of 776 megawatts (MW), comprising of 18 gas turbines.

The minister, who before his appointment was the chairman of Geometrics reportedly confirmed his interest in a bid for the plant at the crucial meeting of the National Council on Privatisation (NCP) on August 24, at which the evaluation of the bids for Afam , Geregu, Kanji, Shiroro, Sapele, and Ugheli power plants were appraised, and authority given to the Technical Committee on Privatisation, to announce the firms that were passed to proceed to the next stage of the bid process.

He was reported to have told the meeting that his firm Geometric, had indirect equity holding in one of the three firms – Primeniza Energy Limited, Skipper Nigeria Limited and NPG Consortium – which bidded for the Afam plant and that he had disclosed his interest earlier.

It was also reported that the minister left the meeting chaired by Vice President Namadi Sambo, following this revelation as it became apparent that his continuous participation in the deliberations would jeopardise the integrity of the appraisal by the NCP.

Analysts said Nnaji should have declared his interest in the firms earlier.
Indications are that Nnaji may have been asked to voluntarily resign from the cabinet instead of being confronted with a disgraceful sack as a result of the clear case of conflict of interest.

Labour Unions in the power industry had called attention to the fact that Nnaji’s appointment constituted a clear case of conflict of interest since he was a player in the industry as the proprietor of Aba based Geometrics Power Company.