President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Friday, August 4, declared that despite Nigeria’s current rate of energy supply, his administration is poised to address all the obstacles militating against stable electricity supply in the country.
Ajuri Ngelale, the special adviser to the president, in a statement, said Tinubu assured Nigerians that his administration will bring solutions to the multifarious challenges across the electric power sector value chain.
The president said the move will significantly relieve longstanding problems of suppressed demand and improve the steadiness of peak supply for Nigerians, affirming that enhanced energy generation and distribution is an imperative for accelerated national growth.
President Tinubu spoke at the groundbreaking ceremony of the new 350MW Gwagwalada Independent Thermal Power Plant (Phase 1) where he urged the NNPC and its partners to deliver the landmark project within the promised three years completion timeline.
“Although the Nigeria Electricity Supply Industry (NESI) is currently characterized by huge supply-gap deficits owing to dilapidated power infrastructure and poor distributions networks, amongst others, this administration is poised to address every power value chain challenge that will significantly relieve the suppressed demand, enhance generation, and improve national peak growth & sustainability far above the hitherto abysmal and unacceptable 5,300MW for over 200 million Nigerians,” he said.
President Tinubu noted that a swift improvement in the stability and quantum of energy supply will enhance national economic development, which remains a cardinal priority of his administration.
“During my electioneering campaign, I made a commitment to Nigerians on providing stable electricity.
“This is to be achieved by ensuring that we use all available energy sources to boost power generation beyond the current installed capacity of 12,000 megawatts, strengthening the integrity of our transmission infrastructure, and ensuring that all distribution bottlenecks are removed.
“We can not form the productive and industrialised economy we need in order to conclusively tackle poverty, and create thousands of high-paying manufacturing jobs for our teeming young people, whose creativity and talent we must harness for national development, without reliable electricity,” the president stated.
President Tinubu affirmed that adequate energy, broadly, and electricity, specifically, is to be treated as the topmost national economic imperative, if Nigeria must develop and maximise her human and natural resources.
