By: Daniel Terungwa
The Federal Government has been urged to restore Dr. Usman Gur Mohammed, as the Managing Director/CEO of Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, arguing that he did very well while in office.
Investigation showed that many top government officials in the power sector are opposed to his recent removal by the Minister of Power, Engr. Sale Mamman because of his numerous achievements.
One of them, who preferred not to be named, said: “As the managing director/CEO, Dr. Mohammed was instrumental to the conceptualisation and execution of many projects and programmes, including additional lines and construction of substations nationwide. He successfully increased TCN’s wheeling capacity from 500MW in 2017 to the current over 8,100 megawatts, MW and could have realised his ‘20,000 MW by 2022 target’.
According to him, “Dr. Mohammed initiated several proactive projects and programmes to stabilize the grid for optimum performance, as shown in the Transmission Rehabilitation and Expansion Programme, (TREP), which secured USD 1.661 million loan from multi-lateral financing agencies to fund the TREP projects.
“He assembled a team of TCN -in- house engineers to install and inaugurated over 68 power transformers, while 795 out of 819 TCN containers, abandoned at the ports for over 10 years were cleared and utilised.”
He added: “As a strong believer in the capacity and capability of Nigerians, Mohammed gave priority to provision of functional Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA), good communication back bone and a spinning reserve for effective grid management.”
Similarly, another official, said: “Apparently because President Muhammadu Buhari had confirmed his appointment as MD/CEO of the company in 2018 for a four-year term, we did not expect him to be removed.
“Dr. Mohammed attracted much support for the development of TCN’s projects from many organisations, including the African Development Bank, which explains why the government should show at least a little regard or respect in managing his affairs.”
The General Secretary, National Union of Electricity Employees, Mr. Joe Ajaero, had earlier stated in a statement that: “As it stands today, no MD/CEO in TCN has provided for the welfare and happiness of workers in the sector better than Mohammed.
“He has stabilised the network and system better than any person before him. Nobody has generated a lot of revenue for government more than U. G. Mohammed. Nobody has protected the interest of the country against foreign predators like U. G. Mohammed.
“The MD of TCN is there to serve the interest of government, electricity users in the country, the workers and Nigerians in general and not the selfish interest of any minister.
“While we commend our members for their response to the sad action of the minister, we urge them to remain on their work bits, but should not fail to pull out should the work stations be militarised, as witnessed in some locations.”