Barring any last-minute change, President Bola Tinubu will inaugurate the 188megawatts Geometric power plant in the Osisioma Industrial Layout of Aba in Abia State on Monday.
A statement by the company’s management on Tuesday said the plant was originally scheduled for inauguration on Saturday, February 24.
“The new date was chosen by the Presidency in Abuja due to what insider sources described as unexpected developments,” the statement noted.
It was disclosed that the president would commission the 188MW thermal plant alongside Aba Power Limited, which will take electricity from the new plant and supply to nine of the 17 local government areas in Abia State.
An energy consultant in Lagos, Cliff Eneh, was quoted as saying, “We are proud of the support the Federal Government has of late been giving to the Geometric Power Integrated Company that will generate and distribute its own power”.
The Managing Director of the company, Ben Caven, described the power plant as the biggest investment in the South-East, saying the company had spent $800m on its integrated power project, which includes building a 27km natural gas pipeline from Owaza in Ukwa West Local Government Area in Abia State to the Osisioma Industrial Layout in Aba.
“We have, in addition, installed 150,000km of cables and wires and installed four new power substations as well as refurbished three others inherited from the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria,” explained Caven.
The Geometric Power Group was founded by Professor Bart Nnaji, who was Nigeria’s former Minister of Science and Technology and later, Minister of Power.
The statement added that Nnaji had embarked on the integrated project after the then World Bank President, James Wolfensohn, and former Nigeria’s Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, visited Aba on March 17, 2004, and discovered that the greatest challenge facing both large-scale and medium-scale industrialists in Aba was epileptic power supply.
Patrick Umeh, a former executive with the Los Angeles Water and Light in the United States who later served as Commissioner in-charge of Markets, Market Rates and Competition at the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), described the tibular poles mounted by Geometric Power in Aba and the environs as “incomparable in Africa.
“Only in cities like Tokyo and San Francisco in California you have facilities of this quality and sizes.
“Much as they are very tall, as all of us can see, the tubular poles here are actually about 10 meters deep.
“In other words, in the unlikely event of a natural disaster like earthquake in Aba or the environs, Aba Power and the Geometric Group will still be able to supply electricity to its numerous customers”.
Nnaji embarked on the integrated project after then World Bank President James Wolfensohn and then Nigeria’s Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala visted Aba on March 17, 2004, and discovered that the greatest challenge facing both large-scale and medioum-scale industrialists in Aba, reputed to be the centre of indigenous manufacturing in Nigeria, is epileptic power supply.
Both Wolfensohn and Okonjo-Iweala appealed to Nnaji to assist with a power plant dedicated to Aba, following the 22MW Abuja Emergency Power Plant he led a team of Nigerian engineers to build in Abuja from 2000 to 2001 that supplied uninterrupted power to critical places like the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Company, the Central Bank headquarters, the Aso Rock and the entire Central Business District of Abuja.
‘Electricity was rarely available in Aba”, noted Chief Alphonsus Udeigbo, President General of the 22,000-member Aba Landlords Protection and Development Association (ALPANDA), “and when it was available it was so poor that it couldn’t power your household appliances, let alone industrial machines”.
The inauguration of the Geometric Power next Monday, according to Sir Alexander Maduakor, President of the Association of Aba Industrialists, “will mark a new dawn in the country, not just in Aba or Abia State”.
