By John Mayaki
For eight long years, the people of Edo state were fed with a carefully packaged lie. It was ex-governor Godwin Obaseki who crafted it and here is the story of how Edo state was killed in the name of Ossiomo power plant.
Am sure you all know that the former governor sold Ossiomo power plant as his crown jewel, an intervention that would finally free us from the darkness of BEDC’s stranglehold. But like everything Obaseki touched, the shiny packaging concealed rot. Today, the truth has emerged: Edo State never owned a single share in Ossiomo. It was a private company all along, yet Obaseki treated it like a family inheritance, pouring billions of our money into its pockets without accountability.
Here is the big lie. For years, Obaseki claimed “his administration invested heavily in Ossiomo.” But how do you invest in what you do not own? Edo state had zero stake, we now know that the state was merely a customer; I mean an overpriced, overbilled customer.
Under Obaseki, we were told that government facilities were deliberately left unmetered, running on post-paid estimated billing, which meant Ossiomo could charge whatever it pleased and of course, they did charge exorbitantly in connivance with the past administration.
Here are the details because, we were told that numbers don’t lie.
Between January and November 2024 alone, Obaseki’s administration paid Ossiomo over ₦5 billion. A whooping sum.
On a monthly basis, bills swung wildly from ₦308 million to ₦718 million, with no meter to verify actual consumption. That’s is the magic of Obaseki or the 7 wonders of Obaseki.
We have now stumbled on documents stating that in September, October, and November 2024, immediately after Obaseki’s candidate lost the election, bills mysteriously ballooned to ₦673m, ₦718m, and ₦474m respectively. Edo was milked to the last drop as the emperor packed his bags to flee abroad.
Meanwhile, tariffs were a rollercoaster of fraud. Ossiomo charged anywhere from ₦99.97/kWh to ₦236.78/kWh, while BEDC, a regulated company, kept steady rates of ₦68–₦225/kWh. So much for Ossiomo being the “cheaper, better option.” Under Obaseki, Edo paid the most for the least. That shows the capacity of Obaseki.
But that wouldn’t last for long. Senator Monday Okpebholo seems to have exposed the scam. And so, within months the lies crumbled. The first thing Okpebholo did was to order prepaid meters across all government facilities. This was something Obaseki never dared to do.
In our very eyes, transparency returned. Bills dropped from as high as ₦700m monthly to just ₦199m for a 45-day cycle. We are told that in less than a year, Okpebholo spent ₦1.55 billion on electricity: ₦1.2bn to Ossiomo and ₦345m to BEDC. Compare that to Obaseki’s ₦5 billion in 11 months. Someone said the difference is staggering. Of course, it has to. Someone somewhere is being criminally empowered in a staggering way.
And so, what Okpebholo achieved with reforms proves that Obaseki’s Ossiomo arrangement was never about light. It was about looting. Whereas, Obaseki claimed he also spent money on reforms too. I mean for you to introduce any meaningful policy in government, there was budget for it. Under Obaseki.
However, there are several questions begging for answers. First, why did Obaseki patronize Ossiomo so extravagantly when Edo State had no stake in it?
Secondly, why were government offices left unmetered for his entire tenure of Obaseki? Thirdly, why did bills spike astronomically right after Obaseki and his candidate lost the election? Fourth, what personal interest did Obaseki have in Ossiomo that justified this reckless spending? Until these questions are answered, Ossiomo will remain the smoking gun of Obaseki’s “good governance” fraud.
Now, we can see the character of an Obaseki who is busy parading himself abroad as a reformer, lecturing on good governance while leaving Edo drowning in opaque contracts, inflated bills, and abandoned projects. Ossiomo is not a legacy of light but a monument of lies. If anything, it should be studied. Yes, it should be studied not as a model of reform, but as a textbook on how to weaponize opacity for fraud.
Thank God for governor Okpebholo who directed his transparency touch-light on Ossiomo and intervened. Edo people now see the truth: Ossiomo was Obaseki’s private cash cow, not Edo’s power solution. He claimed to have given us light, but what he really powered was his empire of deceit.
