Good morning Rufai,
I was pleased that you made reference to Yar’Adua’s government reversal of the sale of the 2 refineries at Port-Harcourt to Aliko Dangote and Femi Otedola at the twilight of the OBJ administration. Yar’Adua’s indeed did everything to undo all the reforms that the OBJ administration carried out as Yar’Adua wanted to retain the commanding heights of the Nigerian economy to the public sector sadly as a reflection of his socialist ideological leaning and to allow babaringa-dressed Northern elite and their Southern collaborators to continue their exploitation of public corporations in Nigeria. As you said, this ill-advised decision set us back by 16 years and was extremely costly to our economy.
Yar’Adua also did a lot to harm the power sector reforms. He activated the false campaign of the expenditure of $16B on power under the OBJ government without any visible achievement, and the Elumelu Committee of the House of Representatives went on an ill-conceived and spiteful investigation drive that exposed their ignorance of turnkey projects. I was at the bank at that time as the Group Executive Energy and Telecommunications in Intercontinental Bank. I attended a Power Sector Summit at Uyo in December 2007 and all stakeholders in the Power Sector, including even the likes of Mr Makoju (Special Adviser to the President on Power, retained from the OBJ administration) could hardly hide their frustrations with the Yar’Adua government.
I daresay, I actually believe that Yar’Adua’s administration would have been almost as bad as Buhari’s if he had lived and completed his tenure.
Have a fabulous day, Bro.