The 2023 presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Prince Adewole Adebayo, has condemned the successive governments from 1999 till date for disposing of critical government enterprises under the guise of privatisation, stressing that privatisation of government enterprises is wrong.
He stated that part of the reason for the massive infrastructure challenge in Nigeria today is because of the sale of public assets between 1999 and today.
He particularly blamed the Olusegun Obasanjo administration from 1999 to 2007 for selling such public assets as the then National Electric Power Authority (NEPA), the Nigeria Telecommunications Limited (NITEL), the National Insurance Corporation of Nigeria (NICON) and the Nigerian Hotels Limited, among others.
He argued what the government should have done was to privatise the industry or the sector but not the enterprise.
He lamented that the ripple effects of that singular policy have been massive infrastructure challenges, massive savings challenges, massive unemployment and a lack of places to train people. “This is because in those days, if you finished school, you could join NEPA, and they would train you. Many engineers in Nigeria today were produced there; many people who are great engineers today are products of NEPA.
“So, you have somewhere to go and work, but we have destroyed the public works department. So if you see any state government in front of the camera trying to commission or start a 10 km road, you will see one Lebanese person standing in front of them. Even simple works that they could do with the public works department, they will not.
“I have more equipment inside my compound, you know, than the entire ministry of works. I have more Caterpillar equipment and other things that I create inside my private house than they have in the works department in Akure, Ondo State. So with that, what have we benefited from privatisation?” he stated.
He argued that even with the privatisation of NITEL, there is still a telecommunication problem because most of the telecom companies still rely on the NITEL exchange to function optimally. “We also have a telecommunication problem because most of the carriers are still relying on NITEL; they are still relying on the NITEL exchange and all of that. They do the company investment. So that will require them to carry broadband across the country, but they can’t do that because the private sector will not do backbone investment,” he said.
He also queried the rationale behind the privatisation of the power company when the operators lack the capacity to run it efficiently and effectively. “People are now generating electricity, but what has happened is that many of these investments will rely on consumers to buy their own transformers,” he said.
He noted that what the government should have done was to open up the sectors instead of privatising the enterprises. “What you privatise is the industry, the sector, not the enterprises. Privatisation of government enterprises is wrong. What you need is to open the sector; that’s all,” he said.
He promised that his party, the SDP, has a better idea, saying, “The idea is to reconstitute and raise new Nigerians who are going to now man these enterprises and then grow industries out of them.”
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