The Federal Government on Wednesday
regretted that despite the various
efforts being put into stabilising the
power sector; about 120 million Nigerians
were still in darkness.
The Minister of State for Power, Mrs.
Zaynab Kuchi, disclosed this while
briefing State House correspondents on
the outcome of the weekly Federal
Executive Council meeting presided over
by President Goodluck Jonathan.
She was joined at the briefing by the
Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran
Maku; Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu
Nebo; Minister of Niger Delta Affairs,
Mr. Godsday Orubebe; and Minister of
State for Niger Delta Affairs, Mr.
Ishyaku Dahiru
The ministries of Power and Niger Delta
Affairs had earlier presented their
achievements and challenges for 2012 to
the FEC.
Kuchi said for the entire 160 million
Nigerians to enjoy stable electricity
supply, Nigeria must look in the
direction of Independent Power Projects.
She said the future of power generation
and supply in the country rested with the
IPPs and Public-Private Partnership.
The minister said the government was
already looking in that direction.
She said, "Privatisation is at its
conclusive stage come July. What we need
to focus on is the commercialisation of
the power sector, considering where we
are and the fact that we are only giving
power to only 40 million Nigerians.
"We have 160 million Nigerians now and we
are only giving power to 40 million of
that population. What it means is that
there are about 120 million Nigerians
that are without power and wish to buy
power.
"We are looking into the energy mix; what
we are looking at are ways that will
bring in so many other options and the
only way we can power Nigeria is to look
forward to IPPs.
"We keep on saying we shouldn't allow
imperialism; yes, we want foreign direct
investments, but we also want Nigerians
to take ownership. If power sells on the
street, power can sell better because
everybody wants power 24/7. We need to
deliver power to Nigerians and the only
way to do this is by serious
commercialisation."
Nebo, on his part, described the decline
being recorded in power supply in the
last few weeks in the country as a
nightmare for the government, saying the
nation had not witnessed such a magnitude
of system collapse for a long time.
He attributed the situation to natural
occurrences such as storms that
characterised raining season.
Nebo made specific reference to Bayelsa
and Birnin Kebbi, where storms destroyed
transmission lines, as well as Abuja
where youths had allegedly vandalised
power projects nearing completion three
times.
The minister also described poor funding
as one of the nightmares of the power
sector, saying no fund was provided for
routine maintenance of the generation and
distribution companies this year.
He said the government worked on the
assumption that the power privatisation
exercise would have been completed in
2012.
Nebo said, "On the decline in power in
the past three weeks, I used the word
nightmare to describe that just a couple
of days ago and there are reasons for
that.
"Number one is that for a long time, we
have not had the kind of system collapse
like the one we had recently. System
collapses occur because of various
reasons. When the raining season is about
to take off robustly, there is a lot of
storm. The state of Bayelsa was knocked
off for almost three weeks, because a
huge tree fell on the transmission tower,
shattered it up to the foundation, and if
we hadn't taken charge immediately and
looked for alternative power source for
Bayelsa, it would have been in darkness
till the end of June.
"But because of the measures we have
taken so far, it took about 10 to 12 days
to restore power, using an alternative
mechanism, which is only short lived. The
full correction would have been concluded
by the end of the month."
Orubebe said his ministry had succeeded
in training of 701 non-militant youths in
the areas of agriculture, oil and gas as
well as maritime.
He added that the ministry had been
regularly engaging stakeholders to
sustain the peace currently being
experienced in the region.
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