-By Felix Douglas
Power supply has been an age long problem in Nigeria without any respite in sight in spite of huge amount of money being spent by successive governments in the country. The unbundling of the power sector has further worsened it owing to numerous challenges from gas to generation, transmission and distribution to end users.
However, stakeholders have attributed the issues bothering the sector to lack of implementation of planned policies.
The Director & Principal Investigator of Centre for Petroleum, Energy Economics & Law (CEPEEL), Professor Adeola Adenikinju was once Special Assistant to the Presidential Adviser to the President of Nigeria on Energy.
CEPEEL was established in 2001 at the University of Ibadan for energy research in sub-Saharan Africa.
Adenikinju posited that former President Olusegun Obasanjo was willing to transform the power sector when he was president of Nigeria but there were many challenges and bottlenecks that truncated the actualization of the government aspiration.
He made it known that one of the things he saw as an Adviser was the disconnect among stakeholders. In many cases contracts were signed that have put the country into some of its numerous challenges and problems in the sector. Some professionals who worked with government signed contracts without understanding the economic implementation of what they were doing.
Besides, engineers and lawyers signed contracts putting aside financial implications as well.
Adenikinju emphasized that Nigeria needs to optimize its abundant natural resources. This array of resources should be utilized and inculcated into the country’s energy mix.
The Professor of Energy Economics disclosed that in 2005, President Obasanjo mandated his office at that time to come up with energy mix and model that will show the amount of energy for power that Nigeria needed to become an industrialized country by 2030.
As a Professor of Energy Economics, Adenikinju said he was confident that the rate at which he handled the process of power transformation, there would be no need to use generator as a means of power and issues around electricity would be nipped in the bud.
It was projected that the country will be having about 7000 Megawatts (MW) as a start, then to 10000 and by 2010 which would have been 5 years later the country will attain close to 15000 MW. This was because of the projects that were ongoing that will be onstream. By 2030 electricity would have risen to 167 000 MW.
Shockingly, if the current power supply in Nigeria is broken to per capita electricity consumption, what South Africa has at present is far better the country. The amount of electricity generated in Nigeria when broken to per capita income compared to other countries within 135000 kilowatts per hour, it will be discovered that electricity is low in the country.
Astoundingly, after 20 years, the country just added 2000 megawatts into its power supply whereas the 2005 plan was to add at least 2,200 megawatts per year. Nigeria is static in terms of electricity supply.
The CEPEEL boss asserted that previous plan was on how to optimize Nigeria’s energy resources to achieve its objectives. There are various energy mix that will come onstream in order to optimize the resources of the country.
Many things were projected such as endowments, cost, environment, power development among others. It was based on analytical studies not mere wishes considering what is best for the country.
Unfortunately, the good ideas were not implemented as continuity on how to extend what was done by the Obasanjo’s government was not improved upon hence the ideas were jettisoned by successive governments.
However, the way out to resolve the issues in power sector, is to get professionals so that they can implement policies that will be viable to run the sector and optimize the country’s energy resources that is in abundance.
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