There is corruption and there is impunity; then there is corruption meshed with impunity. Hardball will want to wager that corruption is perhaps the most versatile noun in its class. That act of impairing the integrity of a process or thing lends itself to numerous other meanings and interpretations and all of them vile.
Here are some samples: the word corruption can also be interchanged with bastardisation, defilement, destruction, deterioration, decomposition, debasement, depravity, adulteration, bribery, wickedness, putrescence… One can go on and on. In other words, corruption is as bad as they say it is. Now when you combine this with impunity, which means simply to escape punishment; the result would be too difficult to contain in any one word.
This scenario seems to capture the matter between Interstate Electrics Limited, owners of Enugu Electricity Distribution Company (EEDC) and Geometric Power (GP), owners of Aba Integrated Power Project (AIPP).
As the story goes, in May 2004, GP entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) to build an integrated power project in Aba. The MoU came with a concession of a ring-fenced area of the Aba metropolis and Ariaria districts. These contiguous areas would be the off-takers of the power generated by the project.
In April 2005, GP upgraded the MoU into an agreement between it, the Federal Government and the National Electricity Power Authority (NEPA). And with the unbundling of NEPA in 2005, a further supplemental agreement was reached between GP, FGN and all the unbundled successor company of NEPA including the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) and EEDC. Further, as part of the agreement, the Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE) in 2006 registered Aba Electricity Distribution Company Plc (Aba Disco) at the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) as the 12th distribution company. Both the BPE and the Ministry of Finance Incorporated are shareholders in Aba Disco.
With all these seemingly proper procedures, why is there now a long-running dispute between GP and the EEDC? Hardball seems to have no other explanation than IMPUNITY, yes with capital letters. According to a series of SOS sent out by GP, no sooner did Interstate acquire licence for EEDC to distribute power in the five states of the Southeast than it moved into GP’s Aba metropolis and Ariaria district and physically disrupted the ongoing projects. Thus for most of two years, GP has been unable to meet on its delivery targets with huge attendant costs.
Apparently, the overwhelming impunity of the Goodluck Jonathan era was working very well for EEDC so it would not obey legally binding agreements and all entreaties even from the regulator failed so far. Impunity.
Here is a telling statement from the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC): “In view of the above mandate and the pending transfer of the ownership of the EEDC to Interstate Electrics, it is important to reiterate, for the benefit of doubt, the existence of a legally valid and binding lease agreement dated April 28, 2005 between the Federal Government of Nigeria, Geometric Power Aba Limited (GPAL), Aba Power Limited (APL), and PHCN. While the encumbrance on the property purchased by EEDC is unrelated to the issue ownership of EEDC, Interstate Electricity as the new owner is legally bound to respect the lease agreement which it is inheriting along with the purchase of EEDC.”
You see why the impunity here is the heedless kind?