Wole Ayodele in Jalingo
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has enjoined President Muhammadu Buhari to make the construction of the Mambilla Hydro Power Project a priority if his administration was serious about achieving greater socio-economic development of the country.
Fielding questions from newsmen in Jalingo yesterday, the former president noted that it had become imperative for the present administration to continue with the project in order to tackle the energy challenge facing the country.
Obasanjo who stated that he was in the state to assess some of the projects he started in the past in order to grow the economy of Taraba and the country further stressed that Nigeria could no longer ignore the great potentials of Mambilla Plateau, adding that the cost of executing the project was getting higher and higher by the day.
“I sited the Mambilla Hydro Power Project on the plateau due to the great potentials it has for electricity generation for the country. Nigeria must complete the project because the cost is getting higher by the day, and if we do not do it today, we must have to do it tomorrow,” he stated.
Stressing that Taraba was a great resource to the nation’s progress, Obasanjo also noted that he established the Tea Factory in Kakara when he was Military Head of State to harness the potentials of the Mambilla plateau.
“We started so many things on the Mambilla Plateau such as the tea factory, livestock, vegetable farms, Rice farm in Gassol among others for the nation’s economic growth and I have come to the state to assess the state of those projects in order to advise the government of the day on how best to handle them”
The former president who proceeded to the Mambilla plateau where he was expected to spend two days however refrained from commenting on the current crisis rocking the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) saying he had bided goodbye to it.
Waxing philosophical, he said, “in the part of this world where I come from, there is a saying that you cannot say ‘good night’ and come to say ‘good evening’ in the same place. So for me, it is good night to PDP.
