Our power sector is ailing. The energy crises have defeated all our presidents. Buhari is the latest victim. As a presidential candidate of his party in 2007, he issued a manifesto in which he bared his mind on the country’s myriads of social and economic problems and his proposed solutions to them should he receive the people’s thumbs up to become our president. Tackling the energy crises was one of them.
The ‘battle’ has now shifted to fuel subsidy removal without any provocative statement from the government in recent times
Officials and residents of the two states have also accused each other of attempting to appropriate the site which is said to contain one billion barrels of crude oil reserves and 500 billion standard cubic feet of gas.
By now, Nigeria should be building a second national power grid as well as regional grids, mini and micro-grids to distribute as much electricity as possible. Moreover, policies should drive private investment in alternative power sources, especially renewables – solar, wind, hydro, tidal, geothermal and biomass.
“It will, of course, conduct itself under the best international business practice in transparency, governance, and commercial viability.”
The president had earlier expressed his concern over frequent power outages, apologising to Nigerians and assuring of prompt solution to the challenges.
The Presidential Economic Advisory Council has asked the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), to remove subsidy on petrol and adopt a pricing regime that reflects the cost of the commodity.
Stakeholders in the energy industry, on Thursday, called for cautious optimism and a public policy document as the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) in Port Harcourt handed over the Port Harcourt Refinery to Tecnimont SPA for the commencement of the $1.5 billion rehabilitation project.
Minister of State for Petroleum Resources to use their leadership positions “to urgently probe how N116 million was spent by your Ministry to buy biros, letterhead and toners in 2015, and to disclose the amount spent on the same items between 2016 and 2020, and if there is evidence of misuse of public funds, refer the matter to appropriate anti-corruption agencies for prosecution.”
“The Federal Government is working assiduously to address these financial and fiscal challenges through various programmes such as the National Mass Metering Programme, the Siemens AG Power Project and the World Bank Distribution Sector Recovery Programme, etc.”
