The stable, reliable and affordable electricity supply promised by the present administration is still a mirage. However, concerted efforts are being made to increase power generation in the country.
As economic activities are gradually picking up after the festive season, industry experts have outlined what the federal government should do to change the narrative.
A cross-section of them who spoke exclusively to TheFact Daily expressed sadness over the epileptic power supply to Nigerians in 2024, consequently, have called for a joint effort between the government and private sector players to achieve accelerated results.
In 2024, the country witnessed poor electricity supply with attendant effect on livelihood and businesses. The year recorded twelve system collapses and vandalism of power infrastructure, reversing almost all the efforts made in the sector.
Speaking on what the government should do going forward, the former Chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Dr. Sam Amadi said the Federal Government should appoint competent people to run the power sector. People who have the technical know-how and are dedicated to work.
He said “the Federal Government should also set up Special Taskforce that would focus on rapid response and quick wins in the technical side of the market not regulatory or commercial to ensure that the grid does not go out frequently. 24/7 surveillance of the network, that should be the work of the technical team that is made of people who are not political appointees. People who will come in and do the work, monitor and put pressure on all the actors, Generation and Distribution to stabilize the grid for more strategic investments. May be take feasibility study of the reforms because some of the assumptions are false and may not work,” he said.
Also speaking, a power sector communications specialist and the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Sage Consulting and Communications, Barr. Bode Fadipe, said the sector should work towards having a zero system collapse this year.
He also said that the state governments must develop the political will beyond securing regulatory liberty from NERC, so that it will not just be on paper alone.
Currently, about 25% of the states in the country has been granted their regulatory liberty.
Fadipe said the “Government must bring the Nigerian Independent System Operator (NISO) which is tied to ensuring grid stability to live. Admittedly, the number of agencies in the sector does not align with efficiency, in other words, it is not the number of agencies in the sector that determine the efficiency of the sector. However, it is important that strategic institution like NISO is given live as quickly as possible, so that they can begin to learn the ropes.
“This is 12 years down the line of privatisation and by now we expect that institutions that have been given birth to by the privatisation process must have known their left from their right completely by now and they should have stabilized by now because they are expected to have learnt the ropes. I cannot understand why last year was turbulence as it was with transmission. For me, it was one of the most embarrassment moments for the sector.
“Also, we ought to have stabilized our policies by now. The regulator by now should be able to predict and take steps ahead. One area where we have not achieved traction substantially, is metering. This is a major issue because it goes to liquidity. And where there is a problem of liquidity we will always go back and forth.
“For instance, the GenCos are being owed about N2trillion and the market has not designed how to clear it. The amount is huge. That is about a budget of a state. And the market cannot exist under that kind of heavy indebtedness to a member of the value chain.
“And then we need to begin to seriously look at the generation, the generation is not as strong as we think it is. If for instance, transmission is able to get its ass together, by the time you fire some of the machines that we use in generation they may not be able to withstand it. So, we need a lot of investment in the sector. Like the $2billion Chief Adedeji Adeleke is bring into the sector, which will account for about 15% of the entire generation in the country.
“Principally, we need to harmonise our polices. Lack of policy harmonisation is also a fundamental factor that is troubling the sector,” he said.
On his part, the National President of the Association for Public Policy Analysis, Chief Princewill Okorie, said “Twelve years after privatisation, we are still struggling around 4,000 MW of electricity with high level of corruption, consumer extortion and exploitation through Metering and billing Policies.
“My organization did something in 2024, we held AMAC/Bwari Legislative Intervention Workshop on Electricity Consumer Protection, and that opened up avenue to look at whether the electricity consumers in FCT are protected or not, and we discovered that there was no consumer protection unit in FCT. So FCT consumers are living at the mercy of service provider. Nysom Wike’s administration should look at the need for setting up FCT electricity Consumer Protection.
“For instance, the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC), got about N5billion in 2020 to provide free meters for consumers under their franchise area which FCT is one of them. Nobody is sure of the number of customers in FCT who got the meters. The regulator approved Operating Expenses (OpEx) and Capital Expenditure (CapEx), nobody is aware of how much of that funds AEDC has put in for provision of transformers, poles, wires, infrastructure and repairs.
“Many communities are complaining that their transformers got bad and AEDC carried them and have not return them to the communities. AEDC said there is no money, and sometimes they tell you that they are looking at the revenue profile from those communities. Now what is the data of the consumers in FCT?
“The Chief Commissioner of the Public Complaints Commission (PFC) Bashir Abubakar said he is going to set up electricity consumer desk in all the offices of Public Complaints Commission across the Federation. We expect that this year, those desks would be set up across the country, and enough awareness made for consumers to start engaging the Public Complaints Commission, because they have the mandate on administrative complaints,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Power, Chief Adebayo Adelabu in a presentation at the National Assembly on Monday, January 13, 2025 said the Federal Government is fully determined to address the challenges preventing the provision of electricity to Nigerians.
“Of particular note is the grid collapse, which has to do with the obsolete and outdated equipment around our power stations. To practically address this, the Siemens project will come on board in the first quarter of this year. We have almost concluded the takeoff of the project and it will involve building five substations across the country. This will energise our supply so that the issue of grid collapse will be a thing of the past. By next week, we will begin the contracts for the substations to come on board”, Adelabu said.
He also informed the lawmakers of the need to address the issue of vandalism as it concerns the electricity asset across the country.
“One other critical thing I want to draw your attention to is the issue of vandalisation as it concerns our assets. It is important we sensitise our people against this act. We must be involved in serious advocacy on this issue. We must jointly address the issue of protecting the power assets. A damage to one is a damage to all, especially the transmission assets, they are so interwoven and a damage to one is a damage to all.
“In this case, we need the cooperation and collaboration of all our security agencies, the Army, the Airforce, the Navy, the Police and the Civil Defense. But more importantly, we need the cooperation and collaboration of the office of the National Security Adviser. We are not just dealing with those who steal cables but bandits, who use dynamite to blow up towers and transmission lines. There is no amount we can vote for this either as a ministry or in TCN that can solve this.
“Our transmission line from Shiroro – Mando – Kaduna which was attacked by these bandits, and which we are yet to put back, was done in a manner as if we were in a war situation. We did not budget for what was spent to put what we could together. How do we manage the protection of these assets? This must be our joint concern, so we are calling for your cooperation and collaboration in addressing this security challenge facing us in our power assets”, the Minister said.
