Lagos mulls law to criminalise power theft, vandalisation

Lagos State government said on Tuesday that it is currently putting a together a bill to be sent to the State House of Assembly for passage into law to criminalise power theft in the state.

The State’s Commissioner for Energy and Mineral Resources, Mr Olawale Oluwo, disclosed this during the annual ministerial briefing, warning that should anyone vandalise power assets, by-pass meter under the Lagos State Embedded Power Project, he or she might likely end up in jail.

“If anyone vandalises power assets, by-pass meter under the Lagos State embedded power project, such person may likely go to jail,” he warned.

Oluwo, flanked by member, Lagos State House Committee on Energy, Honourable Gbolahan Yishawu, said the said draft bill would be to be presented to the House would be ready by next month as lawyers were already working on it.

“We will have a draft bill by next month; the lawyers are already working on it, and the draft will be presented to the State House of Assembly. And when the House passes the bill and the governor signs it into law, we will begin enforcement immediately,” he said.

Speaking further, the commissioner said the state government was determined to meet its electricity challenges by stimulating investment in the state through its embedded power scheme.

“Beyond powering its own public facilities with the already established independent power plants delivering a combined 47.5 Mega Watt, the state intends to stimulate investment through this initiative with the generation of 3,000 MW of power through accelerated deployment of embedded or distributed power plants in strategic locations within three to five years to drive our economy and bring additional electricity to millions of homes and businesses,” he said.

Oluwo said already the state government was in partnership with major international and local industry key players in the power sector to provide a platform for uninterrupted power supply to its citizenry.

He said with the collaboration, the state was using the strength of its balance sheet to guarantee the deployment of off-grid modular plants of between 20MW to 100MW strategically spread within clusters close to reliable sustainable sources of electricity and power evacuation substation for the exclusive benefit of Lagos residents.

Oluwo added that the “Light Up Lagos” scheme had been streamlined into three broad areas, namely; street lighting electrification, community electrification and embedded power electrification.

He stressed that the provision of street lights from Oshodi to Apapa was ongoing, while provision of street lights from Mile 2 to Apapa would soon start, stating that the outsourcing of street lights in the state had been spread among 54 companies.

According to Oluwo, four communities which had been hitherto unconnected to the national grid for 17 years would be connected to the grid before the end of the year, saying that the affected communities concerned all located in Badagry include Obese (Sea Beach), Ikere, Ilado and Obada.

Reacting on the proposed bill, Honourable Yushau said the bill from the Executive was long overdue, adding, “we have been expecting them to present the bill before the House.”

“I can assure you that immediately the Executive present the bill next month, it will be given accelerated passage to ensure it comes into effect quickly to stimulate investment,” he added further.