Femi Otedola, Babangida, Elumelu Win Bids For Nigeria’s Power Plants

Femi Otedola, Ibrahim Babangida and Tony Elumelu

Amperion Power Distribution Limited, a consortium made up of Israeli-based BSG Resource Limited, State Grid Corporation of China and Forte Oil Plc, in which billionaire businessman, Femi Otedola is the major stakeholder as the local partner has emerged the preferred bidder for 414mw Geregu Power in the financial bids for the power generation companies being sold under the privatisation programme of Federal Government opened today in Abuja.

The Consortium bid $132 million for the power plant located in Kogi State.

Amperion was the sole bidder for the Geregu plant and also submitted bid for Ughelli Power Station.

Femi Otedola with a humongous loan portfolio of $1.2 billion was last week named as Nigeria’s biggest debtor by the Central Bank of Nigeria.

Since CBN has also warned banks to steer clear of advancing further loans to him, questions were being raised on how he is going to pay his share of the bid for the power company.

However, Amperion bid for the Ughelli Power Company was unsuccessful as another consortium made up Transnational Company of Nigeria, Transcorp with offer of $300 million for the plant was declared the winner of the bid.

Transcorp is chaired by former Chief Executive Officer of UBA, Tony Elumelu, as his company Hiers Holdings has the single largest stake in the conglomerate.

Chinese Nigeria Power Consortium was declared winner of Sapele Power Plant with a bid of $201 million.

Mainstream Energy Solutions Limited won the contract to manage the Kainji Power Company with an offer of $50.8 million as fixed annual fees and $237.9 as commencement fees.

Also North-South Power, believed to be backed by former military President Ibrahim by Babangida was declared the preferred bidder for the Shiroro Power Plant with an offer of $111.7 million as fixed annual fees and $236.8 million as commencement fees.

However, the bid for Afam Power Plant, according to Atedo Peterside, Chairman, Technical Committee National Council of Privatisation was not opened as all the three bidders failed to meet the stipulated guidelines for the bids. All the winning bids are subject to the approval of the President.

“This is a milestone in the power privatisation process,” Darius Ishaku, Minister of State for Power, Ishaku, said during the bid opening ceremony in Abuja.