We can’t grow our economy in darkness – Peter Obi on incessant grid collapse

We can’t grow our economy in darkness – Peter Obi on incessant grid collapse

The Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023
general election, Peter Obi, has expressed deep concerns over the perennial
power situation in the country, recording 141 times of national grid collapse
in 11 years and calling for urgent pragmatic solutions.

 

Obi noted that Nigeria has only 13,000mw while the demands
are about 200,000mw.

 

He said that even with the 13,000mw, only about 3,500mw are
available for homes and businesses noting that the situation puts Nigeria as
the lowest per capita wattage in the World.

 

In an article, titled “The Collapsing Electricity Sector”,
the LP standard’s bearer said “The Nigeria electricity supply industry faces
real and present danger of collapse despite the efforts made in more than two
decades to initiate a reform of the NESI.

 

“It is sad today that we suffer periodic and routine system
collapses that are attributed to such avoidable situations as fire outbreaks at
critical transmission lines across our major cities. It is absolutely
distressing and a story of a low level of managerial capability that the entire
nation can be plunged into total darkness for a reasonable period because
networks go out because of a lack of diligent attention.

 

“It should worry any Nigerian patriot that the total
installed capacity for a country of more than 200 million people with an
aspiration to become a global medium economy power is a mere 13,000. Worse
still, only about 3,500mws are available for homes and businesses from the
grid. Sometimes, it grinds to less than 2,500mws. This is unacceptable.

 

“We can contrast the available supply of electricity with
competitor countries in Africa like Egypt and South Africa with respective
populations of approximately 112m and 59.6m people supplying about 60,000mw and
58,000 respectively.

 

“This difference in energy wattage has massive implications
for human development and economic growth. Nigeria today has the world’s lowest
per capita wattage in the world, interestingly lower than those of most of our
West African neighbours. It is really sad that whereas our energy demand is
above 200,000mws, we have only 13,000mw installed capacity and can only deliver
less than 4,000mw.

 

“After speaking with experts in the sector I have realized
that the crisis of power supply in Nigeria relates to two major sectors: (1)
generation, and (2) transmission and distribution.

 

“The major challenges of the generation sector are the lack
of a regular supply of gas arising from the failure of the government in the
last 8 years to provide adequate gas infrastructure facilities, weak
commerciality of gas to power and failure to control the restiveness of angry
youths leading to vandalism.

 

“It is shameful that for more than 8 years we cannot resolve
the infrastructural bottlenecks that constrain the supply of gas to power
plants despite billions from CBN for legacy gas debts.

 

“On the transmission and distribution side, the last 8 years
have witnessed terrible failure to overcome the deterioration of networks and
transmission and distribution networks and invest in modern technologies like
SCADA leading to poor coverage, lack of effective coordination between TCN and
discos leading to load rejection and inability to generate public trust for
policy reform on tariff and leading to low private sector investments.

 

“If we had a good project manager, we would have massively
increased generation, transmission and distribution capacity and enhanced
policy coherence that would have crowded private sector investment in the
degree to sustained rapid growth of the grid.

 

“The problem is that the government has exercised the
required political will to appoint the right kind of leadership that
understands the problems of the sector and has the singular dedication and
competence to create quick wins in the short term and transformation in the medium
to long term.

 

“I suggest that the Federal Government immediately
constitute a technical task force of real professionals without political
consideration to present a diagnosis of the crisis of the sector and to get to
work to correct such simple slippage like incessant fire outbreaks that lead to
perennial system collapse, drastically improve coordination and coherence
between TCN and discos so there will be no load rejection, and breath down on
all operators to deliver on their technical responsibilities.

 

“This will rapidly improve power availability in the short
term while the government develops clarity to articulate an integrated national
electricity policy and a practical implementation roadmap that harmonizes
national and sub-national electricity reform efforts to ensure rapid and
expansive delivery of reliable, adequate, and affordable electricity.

 

“We are too endowed to be a nation of generators and to be
trapped in darkness. We cannot grow our economy in darkness.”

Source: We can’t grow our economy in darkness – Peter Obi on incessant grid collapse

 - NigerianEye
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