The wild jubilation that trailed the coming into reality with the operation of the Prof. Bart Nnajiowned Geometric Independent Power project, in Aba, Abia State precisely on Monday, February 26, 2024 after a long-winding period of 20 years, symptomizes the proverbial power of light over darkness. That was exactly so when Nigeria’s Vice-president, Kashim Shettima switched on the first turbine of the Geometric Power Group’s 141MW thermal power plant on that historic day. It also epitomizes the possibility of stable electric power supply, right here in Nigeria – a challenging issue that has bedevilled successive past administrations’ policies – severally riddled with corruption and poor leadership. Of great significance therefore, are the lessons for other state governments to learn from this game-changer in the country’s economic landscape. The first of them is having a dream that would positively impact the quality of life of millions of people, and pursuing it to its logical conclusion, against all odds.

According to Nnaji he was inspired by Prof. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who was then the Minister of Finance but currently the Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). She had charged Nnaji to envision the possibility of putting in place a power infrastructure that could provide uninterrupted electricity to Aba, the commercial and industrial hub of Abia State. That was in 2004. That same year, she invited the then President of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn (now of blessed memory) to Aba to witness first-hand the huge economic and technological potentials of the industrial city.

Secondly, it is of utmost importance to get on board people who share in one’s dreams, as Okonjo-Iweala and the incumbent Governor Otti have done with regards to Nnaji’s vision of the power plant. Though the former approached the latter who was then an Executive Director of First Bank, to appeal that the Diamond Bank that was funding the project had stopped it midway, owing to the global economic crisis, fate had a role to play in the eventual outcome. According to Otti: “We processed an $85m facility for him (Nnaji) but unfortunately, he couldn’t draw down on that facility because the board of the bank felt that because I was proceeding to Diamond Bank as CEO. “On getting to Diamond Bank, we restructured the facility and saw it to completion by October 2014, the time I left Diamond Bank.”

Amongst other challenges that acted as cogs in the wheel of progress were the unfortunate sale and resale of the Aba Invest Island and that took a life of its own. In addition, Shell, which owned the major oil block that was supposed to supply gas to Geometric, was sold to another company whose focus was not gas for domestic use but export. But good enough, there were series of discussions with both Geometric and NNPC on the project soon after Otti took over as governor of Abia State on May 29, 2024. Good enough, NNPC deployed their partners and gas was made available for the plant currently supplying 141 megawatts of power.

With time the capacity will be expanded to 181 megawatts when the final turbine is delivered. The piece of inspiring news, according to Nnaji, is that the Abia Power Project which has changed the narrative in the country’s epileptic power supply can now be replicated across the country. In his words: “You can do it in Eko, you can do it in Ikeja, you can do it in Kano, and you can do it in Kaduna, various places where you have economic activities, industrial activities.” Other states can borrow a leaf from a new electricity distribution company, Aba Power Limited Electric which has started taking electricity from the Aba plant and supplying it to about nine of the 17 local government areas in the SouthEast state. What is necessary for it to succeed is that one needs to have a tight generation and distribution, not only a generation that has no direct relationship between generation and distribution.

That is according to Nnaji. That should serve as the third lesson for us allto understand that once our vision comes into reality – it could be of immense benefit to fellow citizens. Of significance is for us all to understand the fact that the Geometric Power plant is Nigeria’s only IPP licensed to generate and distribute power. This means that it is both a power generating company (Genco) and distribution company (Disco) rolled into one. Another lesson to learn from this project and its location at Aba, which Nnaji confessed has a special place in his heart, because of its potential industrial productive capacity, is for us as different professionals to identify places with their core competence and capitalise on it. That could span from agriculture, education, healthcare delivery to the entertainment and tourism sectors. In all, we fully identify with the success of this project which has the capacity to re-engineer and rewrite the history of unleashing the huge economic potentials of resourceful Nigerians, not only there in Aba but across the country

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