The Federal Government has revved up its investment and policy moves to increase electricity megawatts from 4000 megawatts (MWTs) to 6,000 WHTs within the next three to six months to improve power supply.
The Minister of Power, Mr Adebayo Adelabu, who made this disclosure on Monday during his meeting with the heads of power agencies and other stakeholders in the industry in Abuja, said the government was determined to explore public-private partnership (PPP) arrangement for the purposes of achieving the target.
He said: “4,000 megawatts is not acceptable and we have plans to increase the megawatts to a minimum of 6000 to 6,500 within the next three to six months.
”What we are looking at is to have an agreement to ramp up to a minimum of 6000 megawatts within the next three to six months.
”I know that the highest we ever generated was 5,700 megawatts about three years ago, that was specifically in November 2021.
”And these 5,700 megawatts were also distributed. If we could achieve 5,700 at that time, I believe we still have infrastructure to generate between 6,000 and 6,500”, Adelabu added.
To demonstrate the government’s determination to meet the target, the minister said that he had visited a number of power generation companies (GenCos) and found that they had the installed capacity to generate the 6,000 megawatts.
According to him, while most of the GenCos’ installed capacity is operational, the firms are not optimizing their operations due to low or shortage in gas supply.
He maintained that once gas supply improved, government would ramp up power generation to minimum 6,000 megawatts.
Adelabu further clarified: “We need to do what we need to do to get the power sector to the desired level. Nigerians deserve the right to ask for good governance from people that are elected to power.
“They deserve the right to ask for improvement in service. People cannot be paying for darkness. What they should be paying for is light. And there should be consistent improvement in supply on a daily basis.
“So, I also want to use the opportunity to reassure Nigerians that what we are experiencing is temporary. We are addressing the root cause of all these issues”, he added.
Adelabu said that the ministry and its agencies were working together to ensure improved power generation in the country, stressing that this remains the one of the means to improve the performance of the nation’s economy and socioeconomic well-being of the citizenry.
He maintained: “This is the only way we can guarantee good life for our people and increase industrialisation, employment, economic growth, and industrial development.
“It is true that the Electricity Distribution Companies are in the hands of private sectors. We do not have direct control but we need to compel them to perform.
“They must perform. If they do not perform, all our efforts in generation, transmission is zero. I had a meeting with the Chairman of Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) on how to address DisCos’ performance”, the minister added.
