SOS to President Buhari
Your Excellency Sir, I want to start by first welcoming you back from your medical treatment in the United Kingdom. I say, to Allah be the glory! At last, some of your detractors and other associated unidentified flying objects (UFOs) who have been very busy carrying out campaign of calumny about your ill-health have been put to shame - “Allah shi kara maka lafiya maigida”, amin.
The essence of this writeup as usual is to draw your attention to the travails the former members of staff of the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) are going through due to nonpayment of their severance package. As I write Your Excellency, over 5,000 have not been paid a dime, terminal benefits, gratuity and other entitlements. Even those that were paid, up till this moment, their terminal allowances such as; leave, housing, annual productivity bonus, 16 months arrears, etc. have not been paid as agreed before the eventual takeover by the so-called unidentified investors. The former staff are dying on daily basis as a result of man’s inhumanity to man. In addition, over 1,000 death benefits have not been paid.
Your Excellency, you will agree with me the so-called privatization was nothing but a sham, which signifies nothing but transfer of our common patrimony to selfish, greedy, egocentric political predators, family and friends (FaFs). It may interest you to note that the total asset of PHCN is estimated at over 5 trillion naira, but it was sold for less than half a trillion naira. Even when there was a court injunction not to handover Kaduna Electricity Distribution, they still went ahead with their obnoxious action.
To buttress my point, a former Director General of Bureau for Public Enterprises (BPE), Ms Bolanle Onagoruwa, who was one of those who supervised the sale of the company was later rewarded, sorry appointed the Managing Director (CEO) of the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company. What a reward indeed for a dedicated hardwork! At least, fellow Nigerians can see why we initially opposed the privatization exercise.
If I may ask: Is there any visible difference between the pre and post privatization? Are we not still hovering between the traditional 4,000MW plus? While South Africa and Egypt, with less than 100 million in population are generating over 60,000MW. What an irony!
When you appointed Mr. Babatunde Fashola as the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, everybody was jubilating, thinking that light has come at the end of the tunnel, but to no avail. With due respect to the Honourable Minister, I think the only visible achievement he has recorded so far is the tariff-increase. Maybe the ministry is too big for him to handle. The minister would have written his name in gold if he had vigorously pursued the payment of the entitlements of these helpless, shortchanged Nigerians to the fullest.
Sir, as a father of the nation and leader of the ‘talakawas’, I appeal to you once again to use your good offices as a matter of urgency to compel the authorities concerned to pay these people their severance/terminal benefits. Since there is no going back on the privatization exercise, according to the architect of tariff increase, Minister Fashola, they should be no going back on the payment of their entitlement period! Thank you once again, as you strive against all odds to make Nigeria a better place to live.
U.S. Ladan (Snr), Jos, Plateau State