By Emmanuel Bello
The mood in the Benue-Plateau conference room of the elite Transcorp Hilton in Abuja, Tuesday, venue of the sensitization event, best captured the very essence of the Mambilla Hydropower dam project. The project is one that everyone is interested in. Because, for a brief shinning moment in the history of Taraba state, everyone (and I mean everyone) forgot their party affiliation or any other difference and came under one banner.
It was a day patriotism trounced parochialism. It was a moment of joy too and the best example of the aprophism “no permanent friend or foe in politics”! Or is it everyday you see the Director General of the campaign that sort to upstage Governor Darius Ishaku, Bobboi Kaigama cracking jokes with the governor? And there were many scenes like that. Every one knew just one thing: this project will revolutionise the state in magical ways. With a potential to generate 75, 000 jobs, the project will simply jerk Taraba out of its historic atrophy in the way the Apapa Ports has changed Lagos State. And yet it goes beyond the shores of Taraba.
It’s a win for the Federal Government too as President Muhammadu Buhari can now easily do some chest beating: not every president breaks a close to 50 years jinx!
What this shows is the president is not just a lover of Taraba state but that of the country he leads. It takes patriotism and a certain iron clad political will to submit to this project the way this president has done.
Other winners include the technical partners, the financiers, the top policy makers and, above all, the beneficiaries of the 3050 megawatts when completed.
For the Minister of Power, Engr Sale Mamman, the project simply set him up on a high ground for ovations. His sagacity, doggedness, ingenuity and skillful planning is brilliantly shinning forth. He’s thus probably the biggest winner.
Emmanuel Bello
SA (Media) Mambilla
To Hon Minister of Power