Ex-Minister warns against outage, calls for segmentation of power transmission

FORMER Minister of Power, Professor Barth Nnaji, on Thursday warned that unless there is steady electricity supply in the country, the nation’s quest for a robust economy might be a mirage, stressing that electricity remains the key to competitive economy.

Professor Nnaji who was a Guest Lecturer at the public discourse tagged: “The Big Ideas Podium – Electricity: Key Ingredient for Nigeria’s Economic Development and Unity” called for segmentation of the power transmission lines to improve electricity efficiency and check national grid breakdown.

According to him, “When segmented, the lines should be privatised to renowned electricity transmission companies that have the competence to manage it and expend on it as agreed.  When there is steady electricity supply, it will help improve the nation’s economy. With alternative energy, you cannot compete favorably because of cost.

Electricity is the key to competitive economy and every household should have access to electricity and should be for granted. There will be stability all over, economy, polity, etc.

The Ex-Minister said that why the transmission company was not privatised initially was due to open access issue; where the government wanted the power generating companies to easily upload power to the national grid.

He noted that for a country of about 190 million people to be generating and using an average of 4,500 megawatts of electricity was “very bad”; adding that the abysmal electricity production and transmission had continued to breed low productive capacity.

“We need reliable electricity for economic growth. Electricity is all pervading in an economy. Reliable electricity leads to stability of the nation. Economic growth and stability lead to unity,” he said.

On the generation of power, Nnaji, who is a professor of robotic engineering, said that the country needed clusters of Independent Power Project (IPP) as well as other clusters of investment in all aspects of electricity sector.

“Low electricity supply has retarded growth of the informal and small business sectors and made cost of energy to rise up to 40 per cent of total production alone. Thus, weaken the international competitiveness of Made-in-Nigeria products,” he said.

He, however, listed some of the contemporary challenges facing electricity investors, which included: non-permanent cost reflective tariff; issue of gas availability to turbines and transmission constraints.

Others are: issue of the value-chain of power misalignment; lack of the commercial knowledge of government functionaries to electricity issues and lack of will to enforce contracts, laws and policies in the sector.

Also speaking, one time Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)  Professor Charles Chukwuma Soludo, said that the public discourse was organised by the African Heritage Institution to open people’s consciousness in coming out with big ideas that could move the country forward.

Professor Soludo lauded Nnaji for his invest and work in the power sector especially in Geometric Power, Aba; where Nnaji displayed his ingenuity and mastery of robotic engineer to create a difference.

“To develop Nigeria as well as transform the South East, those who knows what to do must step out of their shelves.

“If the electricity challenge in the country would be fixed; Prof. Nnaji must be instrumental especially as he got a verifiable example with his Geometric Power Project,’’ he said.

The Chairman of the Board of Directors of Afri-Heritage, said that there was a nexus between electricity and the structure of any country; adding that the manufacturing sector had remained under-productive just accounting for only 7 per cent of the national GDP.

On the theme of the public discourse, he noted that the current urban drift would cause huge population of youths trooping to the urban centres; while it would not be long the huge number of youths that migrated would be looking for job.

“It is only the manufacturing sector that could easily provide jobs for such a teeming population at the urban centres. These manufacturing companies needed reliable electricity for production and to keep the workers.

“If, there is no electricity for the companies and no job; it will not be long you start having all sorts of social problems. Criminality, kidnapping, restiveness and social vices will be the order of the day and in the long run a collapsed societal system,” he added.