Despite gulping over N5.5 billion and producing zero electricity, the Sokoto State Government has again approved fresh N950 million for the 16-year- old moribund state Independent Power Plant (IPP).
Governor Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko’s administration in 2008 awarded the contract for the 38 megawatts capacity power plant to U.S. – based energy company, Vulcan Capital Energy.
The contract was awarded at the initial cost of N3.8 billion, with a completion period of six months. The cost later climbed to N5.5 billion with the project still in the works 16 years after.
In December 2022, Governor Aminu Tambuwal begged the federal government to take over the project, saying it had consumed so much of the state’s lean financial resources and constituted a burden that was too heavy for the state to shoulder alone.
Mr Tambuwal made the request while declaring open a 3-day expanded stakeholders’ engagement and interactive consultation on the proposed 30mw (Hybrid) pilot wind farm project in Jaredi, Sokoto state.
The fresh N950 million funding was
announced on Wednesday by the Commissioner for Information and Culture, Sambo Danchadi, after the State Executive Council (SEC) meeting.
”The present administration considers it paramount to complete the project in view of the investment made so far and its importance to the citizens of the state,” Danchadi said.
Unending timelines
However, findings by 21st CENTURY CHRONICLE revealed that since its conception in 2008, the IPP has been bogged down by many problems including the source of energy to power it, exorbitant cost at which it will sell the electricity it produces, dearth of investors and industrial customers, and most recently the impact of COVID-19 pandemic which threw many plans and cost calculations off-gear.
From a N3.8 billion contract cost and six months completion timeframe, the dateline was later shifted to September 2009, then to December 2010, and later to July 2011.
Similarly, the completion period was later fixed for September 2013 before it was extended to August 2014, and November 2016, and again shifted to December 2019.
In an interview with the then Sokoto Commissioner for Energy, Alhaji Balarabe Dandin Mahe, an additional N1.7 billion was spent on the project before the COVID-19 pandemic struck, making the total amount so far spent on the project to be N5.5 billion.
Fueling crisis
Initially, it was said that the plant would be powered by diesel which would be sourced from neighbouring Niger Republic because of its proximity to Sokoto State. After considering its financial implications, however, this idea was dropped.
It would be recalled that, during its test run on November 30, 2019, the project’s Director-General, Mr. Umar Bande, was reported to have said that the plant would consume 33,000 litres of diesel daily, which translates into 12,045,000 litres of diesel in a year. This will make fuelling cost too outrageous.
In 2014, the then Chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum, Rotimi Amaechi, during his project’s inspection tour in Sokoto State also expressed reservations on the possibility of running the plant with diesel, which must be brought from elsewhere.
The AKK fuelling option
The then Sokoto Energy Commissioner Dandin Mahe told this newspaper that time that the issue of fueling was no longer a problem to them because modern technology has provided other alternative sources of powering the plant.
“In the past, this used to look impossible. We could not venture into this area because of the cost but now there is Green Field which approached us and is ready to supply LNG to the plant.
“We can also have a sub-station for gasifying. The product will be brought in liquid form which would be gasified and injected into the plant. That possibility is also there and we are consulting a relevant company that can do this for us. And remember, the Ajaokuta-Abuja-Kaduna-Kano gas pipeline being laid by the federal government will make things easier for us.
“We are just waiting for the contractor to finish his work. It is after the handover that we will use gas,” he said.
However, energy experts have raised concerns over sourcing gas from the AKK project, looking at the cost since the closest link between Sokoto and the AKK is about 400 kilometers.
“This means that even after powering the plant with gas or diesel, the electricity will be produced at a rate far higher than what obtains in the energy market, thus making it nearly unaffordable for the customers, who are mostly home users, not industrialists,” an energy expert, who declined being named for dear of a backlash, said at that time.
The AKK project that the Sokoto state government relied upon to power its electricity plant seems to have stalled.
The 614-kilometre Ajaokuta, Kaduna, Kano gas pipelines project was flagged -off by President Muhammadu Buhari in June 2020, with a completion deadline of 2022. The project is now over two years behind schedule.
Governor Ahmad Aliyu administration, which approved N950 million for the IPP didn’t explain how the fresh fund will make the 16-year-old power plant work.
Instead, energy stakeholders in the state are expressing growing fears that the Sokoto IPP may be another white elephant project that would be guzzling state resources while the state remains in darkness.
