A scandal over his reported links with a company that is bidding for Afam power plant has consumed the Minister of Power Professor Barth Nnaji.
The Presidency last night announced Nnaji's "resignation" in a two-paragraph statement without stating any reason.
"President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has accepted the resignation with immediate effect of the Minister of Power, Prof. Barth Nnaji," a statement by Presidential spokesman Reuben Abati said.
"President Jonathan thanks Prof. Nnaji for his services to the nation under the present administration and wishes him well in his future endeavours."
Since Friday, Nnaji has found himself in the midst of a conflict of interest scandal over the planned privatisation of Afam power plant in Rivers State.
According to reports, he told the National Council on Privatisation meeting on Friday that he had interest in a consortium that bid for the lucrative plant, starting a chain of events that led to his ouster yesterday.
The council meeting, headed by Vice President Namadi Sambo, was held to conduct an appraisal of the evaluation of the bids for Afam, Geregu, Kanji, Shiroro, Sapele and Ugheli power plants.
The Afam plant is believed to have an installed capacity of 776 megawatts, with 18 gas turbines for which the Federal Government recently approved N500 million rehabilitation funds.
A report in Business Day newspaper yesterday said Nnaji, who was chairman of a company called Geometrics before his appointment as minister, told the privatisation council that Geometrics has indirect equity in one of the companies bidding for Afam.
Companies that filed in bids for the Afam plant were NPG Consortium, Primeniza Energy Limited and Skipper Nigeria Limited, but Daily Trust could not confirm which one exactly represents Nnaji's interest.
A newspaper report yesterday quoted a spokesman for Nnaji as saying that his comment on the matter would be made known yesterday. It came in the form of a statement by the Presidency announcing his ouster.
Nnaji is leaving two months before preferred bidders were due to be announced for the long-drawn PHCN privatisation process aimed at overhauling the ailing electricity sector.
Battling the unions
Before the Afam plant privatisation issue blew out, Nnaji has had running battles with the workers' unions in the electricity sector over the whole exercise as well as matters concerning staff welfare.
Just yesterday, a meeting between the Federal Government and labour unions aimed at staving off threats of strike by the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) workers was adjourned till today.
It is not clear if the sack of Nnaji would pacify the workers, who prefer a complete rollback of the privatisation plan, but have been negotiating over benefits in order to allow for the process to go on.
Just last week, the electricity workers unions called on the minister to resign over allegations of large-scale fraud.
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The man, Prof. Nnaji
Professor Nnaji hails from Nkanu East, Enugu State, according to his Facebook page.
He is a Professor of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (1983-1996) was Alcoa Foundation Professor of Engineering at University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States (1996-2002), according to information on the website of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Professor Nnaji has a B.S. in Physics from St. John's University, New York with distinction; an M.S. and Ph.D. in Industrial and Systems Engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, USA and obtained a certificate of Postdoctoral studies in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
He has received numerous awards, including Nigerian National Order of Merit (NNOM)–Nigeria's highest intellectual merit award—and the Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON) in 2010.
Nnaji is the founder Geometric Power Limited—the first indigenously owned private sector power company in Nigeria. He was the Special Adviser to the President on Power (June 2010 to May 2011) and until his resignation yesterday, the chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Power.
Daily Trust