Lagos Assembly wants Fashola to stall sale of Egbin Thermal Station

Lagos State House of Assembly, on Monday, decried the sale of Egbin Thermal Station in Ikorodu by the Federal Government to a foreign firm and called Governor Babatunde Fashola to do everything to stall the sale and ensure that the state was given the first right of offer. The assembly took this resolution at a plenary session when the member representing the host community at the Assembly, Honourable Adebimpe Akinsola, decried the way and manner the power station was sold without any consideration for the host community and state.

Honourable Akinsola, who raised the matter under matter of urgent public importance, said she read about the sale in a national daily and expressed doubt that the state government was carried along in the entire process.

She expressed disappointment that the Federal Government could sell such important structure and infrastructure without giving the state the first right of refusal, considering the importance the state attached to power generation and distribution as the hub of business in the sub-region which, she said, was attested to by its current effort to generate electricity.

Speaker Adeyemi Ikuforiji, while contributing to the debate, also condemned the way and manner the whole affair was handled by the Federal Government without carrying the state government along, insisting that the matter must not be left the way it was.

Deputy Speaker, Honourable Kolawole Taiwo, who also noted that the decision of the Federal Government was a slap on the state, said it was Lagos State that blazed the trail in independent power generation effort.

According to him, the effort was frustrated by the Olusegun Obasanjo-led Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Federal Government, saying that was why the state should be given the first offer now that Federal Government had bought into the idea, “more so when Egbin is in Lagos and already has infrastructure in place.”

“The activity of the station is sure to have some adverse effect on the host community and their interest was not taken into consideration in the sale of the station which is very wrong,” Taiwo said.