REASON ELECTRICITY REGULATORY COMMISSION NOMINEE PROFESSOR AKINWANDE DECLINE THE OFFER

….how Presidency allegedly mounts pressure on him to rescind his decision.

It’s no longer news that three months after he was nominated by President Buhari as the Chairman of Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission, Prof. Akintunde Akinwande is yet to confirm that he is ready to take up the appointment. However, the absence of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor to appear before the senate committee on power for screening further confirmed the fear in some quarters that he may have stylishly rejected the offer.
Global News gathered that Akinwande also refused to appear before the Department of State Services for proper security which serves as another tonic to revitalize the energy of those who believed that he must have run to protect his image and integrity.
Those who are close to the professor informed this magazine that initially when his name was announced, he was eager to come back and contribute his own quota to the development the country and his father land.
We further learned that after consultations with his family and close associates, he was advised against taking up the appointment, mostly because the Buhari government lack direction and focus with no clear cut policy statements that will move the country forward.
One of his advisers was said to have told him that it’s only a hungry man without anything to do will take up an appointment in this uncertain dispensation. He was also said to have warned him sternly that with a good job in America, what else does he want that God has not blessed him with.
This and other arguments are what Akinwande put into consideration that has made him to stay away from the country, a move that has affected the screening of other nominees.
Enyinnaya Abaribe, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Power, said that since the nomination of Akinwande was made about three months ago, and the presidency ought to have checked his level of preparedness.
While suspending the screening exercise, he explained that it was impossible to screen other nominees in the absence of the chairman-designate.
The chairman further said that the privatisation of the electricity sector was meant to improve the power sector and the inauguration of the NERC board was important in playing a major role to that end.
“Regrettably, when members of the committee assembled to screen the nominees made by President Buhari, we were told that the chairman-designate was unavoidably absent. The presidential liaison who brought the nominees informed us that the chairman was unavoidably absent,” he said, adding that “The commission is vital and cannot function without a chairman.”
Other nominees to the NERC board are Sanusi Garuba (vice chairman nominee), Nathan Shatti, Moses Arigu, Dafe Akpeneye, Frank Okafor and Musiliu Oseni.
Two ambassadorial nominees in person of Mrs Paulen Tallen and Usman Bugaje from Plateau and Katsina states respectively had rejected the offer on different grounds. While Tallen claimed that she rejected the offer to take care of her ailing husband and she was not properly consulted before her name was announced, Usman Bugaje simply said his hands were full back home here in Nigeria and it would be difficult for him to abandon the projects he is doing presently.