New Telegraph 
This column is not a big fan of public officers and never prides itself as a defender of people in public office. This does not mean that one is blind to the sterling performance of some good apples among the rots.
Marilyn Amobi, the Lady at Nigerian Bulk Electric Trading (NBET) is one of such rare revelation of this administration. Few months ago, I encountered her at the airport and the name immediately rang a bell due to some media articles, especially the one by Chido Onuma thrashing her competence and accusing her of stealing a whooping N2 billion every month from NBET.
I seized the moment of our chance meeting to ask her a pointblank question, ‘Why are you stealing N2 billion every month and keeping Nigeria in darkness?’
Rather than show anger to my question, she looked into my eyes and said, ‘I have no husband and I have no child of my own. It’s just me, my integrity and my career in this whole world, what will I do with N2 billion every month? I am not a thief and I didn’t steal a dime.
This is corruption fighting back against me because I stood my ground against those bleeding Nigeria’. That ended our meeting as she headed to board her flight. What she said of her self and the way she said it spurred my interest in her.
Is Nigeria afraid of people with integrity serving in public service?
Most Nigerians knew little or nothing about Marilyn and NBET. Marilyn is the Managing Director of NBET. In the electricity industry, the most heard names are the Distribution and Generating Companies (DisCos and GenCos), Niger Delta Power Holding, existing and new IPPs. Others are the National Electric Regulatory Company (NERC) and the Electric Distribution Companies (EDCs). But in-between the GenCos and DisCos is the NBET. NBET is the manager administration of the electricity pool in the electricity industry. It’s 100% owned by the Federal Government of Nigeria and incorporated under CAC.
In its official website, it listed its activities amongst other things to include the purchase of electricity from the generating companies through PPAs and sells to the distribution companies through vesting contracts.
It is in the PPAs that lies the bulk of NBET’s headache which had pitted the corporation against some vested but powerful interests bent on bleeding Nigeria. For example, a gas supply agreement (GSA) between the Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC) Ltd. and Accugas Ltd. which has gone sour is forcing the Federal Government to keep paying over $10 million monthly with or without gas supply to the Calabar Electricity Generation Company (CEGC) Ltd. by Accugas. And there are such other 7 GSPAs.
The GSPA has a take-or-pay obligation of 803 of the daily 104.8mmscf/day of gas and is backed by World Bank Partial Risk Guarantee (PRG) as payment security which has the potential of putting the nation’s foreign assets at risk.
Why did Nigeria proceed to sign a PRG with Accugas in spite of the objections raised by virtually every party involved including the World Bank itself? Everything was done to save Nigeria from entering into this agreement yet corruption won. For the number of times the GSPA/PRG was presented to the Goodluck Jonathan administration for endorsement, the draft agreement was rejected because it was obviously skewed against the interest of the country.
Originally, gas was to be supplied to the Calabar GenCo by Addax Petroleum from its off¬shore Adanga field, but there was a breakdown in negotiations between Addax and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) joint venture (JV) while the 107km gas pipeline from the Adanga field to the Calabar plant was being constructed.
Because Addax and NNPC JV could not sign their own gas development agreement (GDA), the Chinese company notified NDPHC that it could not meet the deadline to supply gas to the Calabar plant, which was at the time nearing completion.
Addax said even if the GDA was signed and the development of the field started, it would still take three years to get the gas to Calabar. It was at this stage that NDPHC decided to approach Accugas – a consortium of Frontier Oil Ltd, Seven Energy and Accugas Ltd. – as an alternative arrangement to get Calabar up and running.
Desperate efforts made between 2011 and 2015 by Accugas and their collaborators to foist this defective contract on Nigeria failed because the then Attorney General of the Federation Mr. Mohammed Adoke raised obvious red flags citing clauses that were not in the best interest of Nigeria.
Marilyn who came on board as an appointee of the current government was also not comfortable with the proposed agreement. She raised critical issues about the World Bank PRG but was ignored. In a November 21, 2016 memo emanating from the office of the Vice President, she was pressured to endorse three “vital documents” – (1) the GSA and related deed of amendment (2) the support agreement and (3) the reimbursement and credit agreement.
In response to the Nov 21st memo she noted that NBET is not a party to the GSA – but warned again of the looming trouble with the GSA and why the PRG should not be signed. She raised issue of sustainability of the transaction. She warned that NBET and NDPHC would not be able to honour the associated financial obligations to Accugas under the “take-or-pay” GSA.
She pointed out that the entire remittances currently received by NBET would barely be sufficient to pay for gas volumes to run the five GE Frane 9E gas turbines at Calabar. This, she said, has serious implications not only for other GenCos but for the other seven NIPP plants in commercial operation.
In other words, the entire revenue from electricity in the country was not enough to pay Accugas for gas supply to Calabar GenCo alone, much less those of the other GenCos, both government-owned and private.
Despite all the red flags spotted by NBET, NDPHC was cleared to sign the vexed PRG by the Attorney-General of the Federation while the then acting President gave the anticipatory approval for the signing of the PRG, sending it for another endorsement by President Muhammadu Buhari who was on medical leave in the UK. By virtue of this singular agreement, Nigeria is paying $10 million to Accugas every month for electricity that was neither supplied nor used, invariably paying for darkness, and will possibly do so for another 30 years.
To worsen the nation’s woes, some powerful elements within the industry now want the Accugas kind of contract which they know the Federal Government will default, so that they too are paid millions of dollars every month while the country bleeds and remain in darkness.
For refusing to enter into similar new agreements, Marylin unwittingly set herself on collision with some powerful forces who without a scintilla of evidence is accusing her of stealing N2 billion every month from NBET. They’re lying.
