The federal government, as part of efforts to improve power supply and ease agriculture practice, has handed over the Ikere Gorge Dam to a private company, the Quaint Power and Infrastructure Nigeria Limited, under a public private partnership, PPP. The ceremony which was done on Friday at the Ikere community in the Iseyin local government area of Oyo State had two ministers in attendance as well as the head of the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission, ICRC , the body empowered to regulate PPP arrangements in Nigeria. Adebayo Adelabu, Minister of Power said the PPP arrangement is a further confirmation of the commitment of the administration of President Bola Tinubu to deliver on his promise to improve power generation and supply in the country.
The benefits of the Ikere Gorge Dam Concessioning include boosting power generation, water supply , irrigation and production of over 10,000 direct and indirect jobs. Hear Adelabu:”The project will generate over 10,000 direct and indirect jobs, while boosting power supply by six megawatts in the state and neighbouring states.”
It will actually do more than that, which is why his colleague in the ministry of water resources and sanitation, Professor Joseph Terlumun Utsev was also at the ceremony. In line with the design of the dam, the host communities should also expect the water supply promised them over 40 years ago when the administration of late President Shehu Shagari started the project. It will probably meet the design to provide irrigation for 12,000 hectares of farmland and provide a habitat for fishes, as conceived by the Shagari administration in the 80s, if the concessionaire is able to bring the project back to work.
The Ikere Gorge Dam is the biggest in the South west geopolitical zone, and it is under the Ogun/Osun River Basin Development Authority. This is coming after two other projects have been taken over for revival by the government. The projects are the four-megawats hydropower plant in Kogi state and the 40-megawatts Kashimbila Multipurpose Dam in Taraba State.
The Ikere Gorge Dam concession will not only boost power generation and water supply, it will enhance agriculture and effort to achieve food security in the country.
Recall that the federal government directed the ministry of water resources to activate the dams in the country to meet the mandate of the River Basin authorities to provide irrigation to farmlands within their areas.
But the Ikere Gorge Dam had been neglected for years by successive governments such that even people in the host community could not get fish in good quantity from it. A completion of the power project will reduce the frequency of water shedding by the dam operators, which hinders farming. The reactivation will, no doubt, bring development to the host community as well as ease the supply of electricity and water in the adjoining states, as well as boost farming in the host community.
