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Military assault on AEDC staff cruel, unjustifiable – ANED

Published

5 years ago

December 25, 2021

The Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors (ANED) has described the alleged beating up of staff of the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) as “unjustifiable” and “cruel”, portending grave danger for the power sector.

The comments were in response to a report in which four staff of the Disco narrated how they were detained and handed over to soldiers for torture by an army officer, Major General HD Tafida after they had gone to deliver a demand letter (AEDC/DMU/12-21/118) to him at his Gwarinpa residence in Abuja over his indebtedness to the service provider.

“The staff were merely going about their legitimate duties. They had done nothing wrong. They merely went to serve a letter. How that led to soldiers being sent to look for them is beyond us. It didn’t end there. The soldiers arrested them presumably on the orders of the General and took them all the way from Gwarinpa to Mambilla Barracks and proceeded to torture and humiliate them. Why in God’s name will you have a grown person flogged for going about his normal, legitimate assignment? This is cruel, inhuman and unjustifiable,” Barrister Sunday Oduntan, ANED’s Executive Director for Research and Advocacy said in a statement.

“You have an obligation to pay for power you have consumed. If you were paying, no one will serve you a letter of demand. Being an Army General does not exempt you from paying for electricity consumed. The Nigerian Army as an organisation, is one of our biggest customers across the country so I can say for a fact that this kind of conduct is not the way the Army relates with our members . I do not know why he will choose to deliberately embarrass the Chief of Army Staff and the entire military like this.

“More than the opprobrium he has attracted to men in uniform generally though is the fact that acts like this insert unjustifiable fear in the minds of hard-working Nigerians trying to earn a living. Being a Disco staff is a honorable profession.

“Despite the fact that our power sector has its issues, the daily technical and commercial efforts of these men and women which ensure that the power sector’s relationship with the end users is managed in a way that keeps the economy running is very, very significant. This is not the first incident of physical attacks on Disco staff. A considerable number of such attacks happen across the nation every year when our staff go about doing their jobs

“Let us not also encourage the inflicting of bodily harm to the challenges they have to endure. We should not and will not keep quiet in the face of it,” Oduntan added.

“We will like to call on the authorities of the Nigerian Army, led by Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen Farouk Yahaya to please intervene in this matter to ensure justice is done. A lot of effort has gone into repositioning the army in recent times and such barbaric acts are not the kind of thoughts we should be having of our brothers in the military today,” Oduntan concluded.

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Alake Inaugurates Nigeria-US Solid Minerals Committee, Dismisses $700bn Claim, Says No Assets Sold

Published

5 days ago

October 28, 2026

The Gleamer

Joel Ajayi

The Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dr. Dele Alake, on Tuesday inaugurated the Nigeria-United States Committee on Strategic Cooperation in the Solid Minerals Sector in Abuja, dismissing reports that Nigeria sold $700 billion worth of solid minerals to the US.

The inauguration followed the strategic cooperation framework established between Nigeria and the United States during the 81st United Nations General Assembly in New York.

In a statement issued on Wednesday by the Head PRESS and Public Relations Department Mrs. Kania Maliki Andeyaba stated that, Alake in the Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, signed with the US is a government-to-government platform to facilitate business-to-business engagements between American investors and Nigerian local operators, not a sale of assets.

Harping on the importance of the solid minerals sector to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s economic diversification agenda, he noted that the administration was committed to reducing dependence on a mono-product economy through the sustainable development of Nigeria’s vast mineral resources.

According to him, the Nigeria–US partnership as a strategic initiative to attract investment, promote technology transfer, strengthen local mineral processing and create employment opportunities.

“There is no sale of any Nigerian asset. There’s nothing exchanging hands,” Alake declared.

“We created a platform to facilitate mingling of US investment ventures with Nigeria’s local operators. It is in the public domain. We signed it in public and published it in four or five national newspapers.”

The Minister said reports claiming the US was coming to take over Nigeria’s minerals and security architecture were untrue at best and products of riotous imagination at worst.

Explaining the policy thrust, Alake said Africa has historically held the short end of the stick in global economic transactions, and Nigeria is determined to change that model.

“We have the resources, the critical elements the world needs to transit to clean energy. So we are creating a new paradigm — you bring your capital, expertise and technology, to match with our natural resources and create a win-win situation . The investor gains, Nigeria gains.’’he said.

Nigeria, he stressed, had operated a mono-cultural economy dependent on oil, while solid minerals were exploited informally — with ores taken “from pit to port” without value addition.

Alake said government has now made local processing mandatory, refusing to grant mineral titles to investors without a clear pathway to processing in Nigeria.

He said the policy led to the springing up of processing factories, including the largest lithium processing plant in West Africa commissioned recently in Nasarawa by the Vice President, and informed the formation of the African Minerals Strategy Group.

Alake noted that investor confidence has returned due to macro-economic reforms by President Bola Tinubu that guarantee security of tenure and repatriation of profits.

He charged the committee to discharge its assignment responsibly, saying its work is strategic to achieving the President’s $1 trillion economy target.

To this end, he told the Committee to ensure effective coordination, identify investment opportunities and translate the framework into measurable outcomes capable of positioning Nigeria as a competitive player in the global solid minerals industry.

In his welcome address, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Engr. Faruk Yusuf Yabo, said the inauguration translates growing bilateral engagements into a structured framework for practical cooperation and investment mobilization

Economic Officer at the US Embassy, Jonathan Baas, said President Donald Trump has prioritized three areas for US embassies — energy, artificial intelligence/super intelligence, and critical minerals.

Baas said Washington’s direction is to work with partners to secure critical supply chains while ensuring partners capture value.

“We just signed a contract today on looking into building AI data centres in Nigeria at the Nigerian Economic Summit. That’s the direction Washington wants us to go,” he said.

In his vote of thanks, CEO/Managing Director of Nigeria Solid Minerals Company, NSMC said that the committee

is expected to coordinate implementation, facilitate investment and monitor progress towards achieving the objectives of the Nigeria–US cooperation framework.

The inauguration reinforces the Federal Government’s commitment to repositioning the solid minerals sector as a key driver of economic diversification, industrial development and national prosperity under President Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda.

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