•Revealed how unpatriotic Nigerian attitude delay his $2b power plant for one year
A business magnate and Pro-Chancellor of Adeleke University, Ede, Osun State, Dr. Deji Adeleke, has explained the reasons the ongoing construction of a 1,250-megawatt power plant which cost $2 billion in Ajebandele village, Ondo State may be delayed for one year.
Adeleke, the father of Nigerian pop star, Davido and one of the leading industrialists in Nigeria commenced the project a few years ago to complement the existing 4,000 megawatts of Nigeria.
Addressing the 9th set of graduates of Adeleke University Ede, Osun State, Adeleke disclosed that looters invaded the power plant site to steal components of the turbine machines which cost $ 5 million and may lead to delay in delivering the project in record time.
He also revealed how lack of patriotism is affecting Nigeria to progress in the committee of nations. He added how his patriotism to his father’s land made him reject UAE’s exemption letter offered him after Nigerians are banned from the country.
In his speech, entitled, ‘Change Begins with You’, Adeleke counseled that citizenship comes with responsibilities which will go a long way in nation building, saying, “Everybody must contribute its quota, by doing the right thing and then we will hold our leaders accountable.”
He said: “I am building a 1250MW power plant, Nigeria has about 5,000 MW, adding mine to it is a lot. The cost is $2 billion. We started it in a village in Ondo state. We brought in turbines that cost about $72 million.
“The construction of the project engaged over 1000 people and at a minimum 200 to 300 people will come from that village, that is for direct employment not to talk of indirect. The few security that we engaged are to protect our engineers so that they will not be kidnapped so we need young men from that village to help us guide the power plant.”
”Last month, we discovered that some of the turbines have been broken into, some of the components built with copper have been looted, those components were yanked off in each of those turbines, these are heavy items that will require at least 10 people to lift single one. This means that somebody would have brought in a truck at night to carry those things away.
“The project will be delayed for another year to get those things they looted back. This is going to cost us a minimum of $5 million to replace. So can we blame our leaders for that? These are young peoples in their twenties that we employed. We have to sack them out of the plant and bring in securities from top agencies in Nigeria to man and take over the whole plant. I am sure that those things they looted, they won’t seek it for N5 million.”
Adeleke explained that he turned down an exemption letter from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) because the country had banned Nigerians from visiting the country.
“I buy a lot of spare parts from a company based in Dubai, so I was sent a letter that I will be given a special exemption to be visiting Dubai if I wanted to, so I told them that I am not interested, if Nigerians are not welcome to come to Dubai, why should I be happy to get an exception to go to Dubai, what is Dubai anyway?”
