The National Council on Privatisation (NCP), chaired by Vice President Kashim Shettima, has approved a crucial step to finalise the 2020 sale of Afam Power Plc and Afam III Fast Power Limited to the Transcorp Power Consortium.
The move is aimed at regularising the transaction by executing the outstanding Performance Agreements (PAs), which will enable the full operational and commercial viability of the plant.
The approval, which followed a memo presented by the Director General of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Ayodeji Gbeleyi, at the NCP’s third meeting, authorises the BPE to execute the PAs.
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The Afam Power Plant sale to Transcorp was completed in November 2020, and the asset has since been fully handed over to the core investor.
The government has collected an outstanding N53.9 billion from the sale of privatisation proceeds.
The execution of the Performance Agreements is a standard post-acquisition procedure in the power sector that locks the investor into specific performance and operational targets.
Gbeleyi noted that this action now allows the BPE to commence the mandatory post-privatisation monitoring of Transcorp’s performance obligations to ensure the plant meets its operational targets.
Chairman of the NCP, Shettima, used the meeting to demand a fundamental shift in Nigeria’s privatisation strategy.
He called for the national focus to move beyond merely selling state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to asset optimisation as a core driver for achieving the nation’s trillion-dollar economy ambition.
Shettima stressed that this new direction is a critical necessity, demanding discipline, vision, and absolute adherence to the NCP’s guidance to prevent economic projections from remaining purely “theoretical.”
Shettima directed the Council to explore modern models like long-term concessions, asset-backed securitisation, and core investor sales with strict performance benchmarks to unlock the value of Nigeria’s “immense reservoir of national wealth.”
This includes underutilised land, dormant real estate, and untapped intellectual property.
He issued a stern warning, demanding zero tolerance for ambiguities in transactions to avoid costly litigation and send a “powerful signal of stability and seriousness to the international investment community.”
In other matters, the BPE Director General reported on the Council’s performance for the year, confirming a major milestone: the unbundling of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN).
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The TCN was unbundled into two distinct entities: the Nigerian Independent System Operator and the Transmission Service Provider.
Ministers in attendance, including Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, and Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, commended the BPE team for its commitment to quality and best practices.
