The Minister for Power, Chief Adebayo Adelabu, stated on Friday in Ibadan, the capital of Oyo State, that President Bola Tinubu’s strategies to effectively address recurring challenges in the power sector are still on course. He emphasized that arrangements have been concretized to explore a bottom-up, workable plan capable of providing Nigerians and the economic industry with regular and affordable electricity.
Adelabu explained that past governments have attempted to solve the hydra-headed monster in the power sector, but their ineffectual measures and plans rendered their policies useless.
Speaking on the sidelines of the 1st Annual Socio-Economic Summit organized by Jericho Business Club (JBC) at Ibadan Civic Centre, Adelabu contended that “President Bola Tinubu’s agenda to provide 24-hour electricity for Nigerians is still on course and intact. Our people have suffered so much in terms of energy poverty.”
This comes as experts at the summit urged the Federal Government to address the challenges inhibiting the power sector permanently.
Adelabu stated, “Our mandate is to ensure that we do what we should for steady and effective electricity supply. The problems with the power sector are numerous. The Generating Sectors (GENCOS) have their problems, the Electricity Distribution Companies (DISCOs) have their challenges, and the consumers, I mean the households, are also facing problems.
“What we have done is to identify these challenges and map out strategies for enduring and workable solutions. For example, we have a huge meter gap with the customers because many households and businesses have no meters. Without meters, you cannot bill, sustain, and collect revenues. We are trying to reduce the meter gap to ensure that every household or business has a meter.
“We are also working on stronger and more effective legislation to ensure that all theft and vandalization of power assets by anybody becomes a thing of the past. When you destroy the transmission lines and power cables, you will quickly face the wrath of laws. We want to fast-track trials of power thieves and vandals to serve as an urgent deterrent to other criminals.
“We should be conscious that if we destroy or vandalize power assets, we are not hurting the government but ourselves. That is one of the reasons we don’t have a regular electricity supply.
“Our electricity distribution companies have to sit up. DISCOs must invest in improving the infrastructures for distribution. That is what they signed at the point of privatization. They must work on improving the infrastructures of distribution.
“We as the government are doing our best to revive the national grid, expand, strengthen, and stabilize our power generation capacity so that we will not be experiencing incessant collapses of the national grid. Beyond all these, we are also trying to adopt renewable energy to ensure that we have alternative power sources.
“The Federal Government is exploring the solar system in the northern part of the country where we have a very good sun, capable of aiding power generation and small hydro plants from our dams in the South West and Middle Belt. We are also going to utilize coastal cities such as Lagos, Warri, Calabar, Yenagoa, Benin, and others.
We are exploring the use of windmills to ensure that we generate power. This will complement our hydro power plants in Kanji, Jebba, Shiroro, and Zungeru today. It will also boost those gas power thermal plants in the Niger Delta area. In no time, energy poverty will be a thing of the past. Every household and business will have unfettered access to regular and affordable power supply. That is the mandate we have.
Earlier in her presentation, an agro-allied expert, Mrs. Oluyemisi Iranloye, charged the Federal Government to redouble its policies and implementation of programs that will encourage smallholder farmers in the agricultural value chain and key into technologies that can effectively drive the economy.
Iranloye, who is the founder and CEO of Paltry International Limited, Oyo State, maintained that power generation is critical to the socioeconomic growth of the agricultural and manufacturing sectors as a catalyst for employment generation and Nigeria’s emancipation from the shackles of poverty.
In his remark, the president of Jericho Business Club (JBC), Chief Remi Babalola, said the “topic for this year’s summit titled: ‘Driving Agricultural Transformation in Oyo State Through Value Chain Integration for Sustainable Development,’ underscores the strides made by the Oyo State government in the agriculture sector.”
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