- * The Total 369 Mega Watts Double Thermal Power Plants To Light Up 17 LGAs In Abia State
Over $800 Million Dollars Spent On Geometric Integrated Power Project, Including A 27-kilometre Owaza/Osisioma Natural Gas Pipeline
Geometric Power And Aba Power Plants Described As The Biggest Investments In South East, Nigeria
- How Prof Barth Nnaji Was Prevailed Upon By Ex-World Bank President, James Wolfensohn And WTO President, Okonjo-Iweala To Build The Power Plants
By Celestine Okafor (Editor-in-Chief)
Nigeria's President, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, will, on Monday, February 26, 2024, formally commission the 181-megawatt Geometric Power plant and the 188-MW Aba Power Plant Limited, both located in Osisioma Industrial Layout of Aba, the Abia State industrial and commercial city, South East, Nigeria.
A statement by the management of the company led by it's Group Managing Director, Mrs Agatha Nnaji, said the two 369 total mega watt thermal power plants were originally scheduled for inauguaration today, Saturday, February 24, by President Bola Tinubu, but had to be shifted to Monday, February 26, 2024 by the Presidency in Abuja due to what insider sources described as unexpected developments.
According the management, President Tinubu will commission the 188-MW thermal plant alongside Aba Power Ltd which will take electricity from the new plant and supply to nine of the 17 local governement areas in Abia State.
Reacting to the decision to postpone the long-awaited commissioning to Monday, an energy consultant in Lagos, Engineer Cliff Eneh who was a senior manager with the defunct National Electric Power of Nigeria (NEPA), after serving as a senior engineer with the Texa Power and Light Corporation in the United States, said this morning: “A 48-hour difference is not significant.
“We are proud of the support the Federal Governemnt has of late been giving to the Geometric Power integrated company, the only group in Nigeria that will generate and distribute its own power; other power firms either generate or distribute but do not get involved in both”.
Described as the biggest investment in the Southeast, Geometric Power has spent some $800 million dollars on its integrated power project, which includes building a 27-kilometre natural gas pipeline from Owaza in Ukwa west LGA in Abia State to the Osisioma Industrial Layout in Aba.
“We have, in addition, installed 150,000 kilometres 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 (PHCN”, explained Ben Caven, a former NEPA Executive Director famous for leading Transmission, Generation and Engineering Divisions simulatenously in the former state-owned power utility.
Caven is now the Managing Director of Geometric Power Ltd.
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”, Umeh stated .
The Geometric Power Group was founded by a renowned globally respected academic engineer in the United Staetes, Professor Barth Nnaji, who has been Nigeria’s Minister of Science and Technology and later Minister of Power. Nnaji is Africa's first Professor of Robotics Engineering, one of the best in the world. He was also the first black Professor Chair-Endower, a global citizen with vast work experience and a result oriented person.
Among Professor Barth Nnaji's pedigree is being a former Director, United States' Center of Excellence on E-Design; a former Chairman, Presidential Taskforce on Power; former Special Adviser to the President on Power; Chairman, Geometric Power Limited; Chairman, South East Region Economic Development Company; Co-Chair, Enugu State Economic Advisory Committee; Chairman, NLNG Prize for Science and a current Pro Chancellor, Bells University of Technology, Otta, Ogun state.
Professor Barth Nnaji embarked on the integrated project after then World Bank President James Wolfensohn and then Nigeria’s Finance Minister and current President of World Trade Centre (WTO), Dr 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 which 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.
President-General of the 22,000-member Aba Landlords Protection and Development Association (ALPANDA), Chief Alphonsus Udeigbo, said "Electricity was rarely available in Aba and when it was available, it was so poor that it couldn't power your household appliances, let alone industrial machines”.
The inauguartion of the Geometric Power on 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”. NNL.
