Mambilla Dam, Nigeria

The River Benue runs through the Mambilla Plateau

The 2,600 MW Mambilla Plateau Hydropower Project has been called Nigeria's Three Gorges Project. If built, it would have the largest capacity of any dam in Africa, and it would be one of the most costly (US$1billion). Those financing and constructing the dam include the China Exim Bank, its main funder, China Geo-engineering Corporation, and China Gezhouba Group Corporation.

Like many projects in Nigeria, Mambilla Dam has been engulfed in controversy over the corruption exercised by Nigeria's previous president. For instance, while a contract has been awarded to Gezhouba, the main builder of the Three Gorges Dam, no work has yet begun at the project site, besides a project inauguration ceremony. When Mambilla was first proposed, the German engineering company Lahmeyer got a contract to carry out a feasibility study in April 2005. Since then, Lahmeyer has been blacklisted by the World Bank, after being convicted of bribery in the Lesotho Highlands Water Project in 2003. Lahmeyer was supposed to carry out its Mambilla contract within 15 months, but while it collected US$3.2 million, no work occurred on-the-ground.

Many fear that Mambilla will go the way of previous large development projects (including large hydropower projects) where contracts are meted out but projects are never built. Instead, corporations and politicians pocket the money, and local communities receive few benefits. Ongoing parliamentary investigations in Nigeria have brought up many such cases, among them the Kainji and Mambilla hydropower projects. If the Mambilla dam project does continue, it could mean disastrous environmental and social impacts for those already living in poverty along the banks of the Benue River.

International Rivers continues to support local groups in their efforts to confront Chinese companies that are involved in dam projects in Nigeria. To read more about Nigeria's water corruption scandal, visit Peter Bosshard's blog.