Power supply challenges not Adelabu’s fault — Aide

The Chief Technical Adviser to the Minister of Power, Adebayo Olowoniyi, has said the current power supply challenges in Nigeria are not the fault of the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, but rather the result of technical issues affecting gas supply.

Olowoniyi made this known on Thursday during an appearance on Arise TV, days after Adelabu apologised to Nigerians over the persistent outages that have worsened living conditions for households, businesses and industries.

Defending the minister’s apology, Olowoniyi said it reflected leadership rather than an admission of personal responsibility.

“I think, first of all, I’d like to start with the apology from the Honourable Minister, which we believe is all about taking leadership in the sector.

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“Not necessarily directly his fault for the challenges that we have, but as the Minister of Power, he just took it was the right leadership step to say, okay, I take ownership of this issue, and I’m going to proffer a solution that would ensure power supply comes back in the shortest available time,” he said.

He explained that the disruption in electricity supply was largely caused by maintenance work on a major gas pipeline that supplies fuel to power plants, noting that about 75 per cent of Nigeria’s electricity generation depends on gas.

“One of the major gas pipelines in Nigeria was undergoing maintenance, and gradually that process is being completed.

“We’re sure that within the next two weeks, full gas pressure will be back on the gas pipelines, and the power plants will be able to get enough gas at least to go back to their level of generation that they had in the last two to three months,” Olowoniyi said.

He, however, assured Nigerians that the situation would improve soon, adding that recovery would be gradual but steady.

“I would already say that from yesterday, we would have gradually started to see some improvement as the pressure on the pipeline gradually starts to build up, and we will see continuous improvement over the next couple of weeks,” he added.

The development follows Adelabu’s earlier assurance that efforts are ongoing to restore supply, with stakeholders working to resolve the gas constraints affecting generation.

“I can tell you, with the committee that we have set up, and commitments from gas suppliers, and the timeline for repair of the gas pipelines, two weeks from now, we should start seeing improvements in supply. Two weeks,” Adelabu had said.