Obi Distressed By Current Deplorable Power Situation, Says 13,000mw For 200,000mw Demands Unacceptable

Peter Obi, the Labour Party’s Presidential Candidate in the 2023 general election, has expressed deep concern about the country’s perennial power crisis, which has resulted in 141 national grid collapses in 11 years and has called for urgent pragmatic solutions.

In a press statement issued by Dr. Yunusa Tanko, Spokesman, Obi stated that Nigeria has only 13,000mw while the demand is around 200,000mw.

He stated that, despite the 13,000mw, only about 3,500mw are available for homes and businesses, putting Nigeria as the country with the lowest per capita wattage globally.

In an article titled “The Collapsing Electricity Sector,” the LP standard’s bearer stated that “The Nigeria electricity supply industry faces real and present danger of collapse despite efforts made in more than two decades to initiate NESI reform.”
“It is unfortunate that we now experience periodic and routine system failures caused by avoidable events such as fire outbreaks at critical transmission lines across our major cities. It is extremely distressing and indicative of a low level of managerial capability that the entire nation can be plunged into complete darkness for an extended period because networks fail due to a lack of diligent attention.

“It should worry any Nigerian patriot that the total installed capacity for a country of over 200 million people with aspirations to become a global medium-sized economy power is only 13,000. Worse, the grid only provides around 3,500mws to homes and businesses. It can sometimes grind down to less than 2,500mws. This is unacceptable.
“We can compare the available supply of electricity to competitor countries in Africa such as Egypt and South Africa, which have populations of approximately 112 million and 59.6 million people, respectively, and supply approximately 60,000mw and 58,000mw. This difference in energy wattage has far-reaching consequences for human development and economic growth. Nigeria now has the lowest per capita wattage in the world, which is significantly lower than that of the majority of our West African neighbours. It is unfortunate that, despite our energy demand exceeding 200,000mws, we only have 13,000mw installed capacity and can deliver less than 4,000mw regularly.
“After speaking with industry experts, I concluded that Nigeria’s power supply crisis is divided into two major sectors: (1) generation and (2) transmission and distribution. The generation sector’s major challenges include a lack of a consistent supply of gas as a result of the government’s failure to provide adequate gas infrastructure facilities over the last eight years, weak commerciality of gas to power, and a failure to control the restiveness of angry youths, which leads to vandalization.
“It is shameful that after more than 8 years, we have been unable to resolve the infrastructural bottlenecks that limit the supply of gas to power plants, despite billions of dollars from the CBN for legacy gas debts.
“On the transmission and distribution side, the last eight years have seen a terrible failure to overcome the deterioration of networks and transmission and distribution networks and invest in modern technologies like SCADA, resulting in poor coverage, a lack of effective coordination between TCN and discos, resulting in load rejection, and an inability to generate public trust for tariff policy reform, resulting in low private sector investment.
“If we had a good project manager, we would have significantly increased generation, transmission, and distribution capacity, as well as improved policy coherence, which would have crowded out private sector investment to sustain the grid’s rapid growth. The issue is that the government has not demonstrated the necessary political will to appoint the right type of leadership that understands the sector’s problems and possesses the singular dedication and competence to achieve quick wins in the short term while transforming in the medium to long term.
Given the current government’s lack of ideas on how to restructure the power sector, as demonstrated by the minister, Obi advised the government as follows:
“I suggest that the Federal Government immediately constitute a technical task force of real professionals without political consideration to present a diagnosis of the sector’s crisis and to get to work to correct such simple slippages as incessant fire outbreaks that lead to perennial system collapse, drastically improve coordination and coherence between TCN and discos so that there will be no load rejection, and breathe down on all operators to deliver on their technological This will significantly improve power availability in the short term while the government works to develop an integrated national electricity policy and a practical implementation roadmap that coordinates national and sub-national electricity reform efforts to ensure rapid and widespread delivery of reliable, adequate, and affordable power.
“We are far too gifted to be a nation of generators while remaining in darkness. Our economy can not grow in the dark.