The Federal Government on Tuesday signed two Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) with a Chinese company, Mutual Commitment Company (MCC) Limited for the purposes of establishing electric tricycles assemblage factories in the country.
The MoU was facilitated by the Rural Electrification Agency (REA), an agency of the Federal Ministry of Power.
Speaking at the event in Beijing on the eve of the opening ceremony of the African-China Co-operation Summit, the Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu said the MoU was important and will go down as a memorable day for Nigeria.
He congratulated the REA and the National Power Training Institute of Nigeria (NAPTIN) for the feat in view of the fact that it will help in achieving Nigeria’s vision for the renewable energy sub sector of the entire electricity sector value chain, among other benefits
The minister said: “I know Nigeria and China have a lot of things in common one of which is the fact that Nigeria and China are both high population countries and with a country with high population, you have so much pressure. The first pressure is that of energy access and the second being job creation.
“So when you take steps to achieve both, it is a thing of joy. I am particularly happy that this is happening during the tenure of President Bola Tinubu, as it is in line with achieving the Renewed Hope Agenda of the administration for the country”, Adelabu added.
The Minister reiterated the fact that President Tinubu has prioritized the power sector as the driver for all other critical sectors of the economy, noting that energy access and expansion is government’s major priority because nothing can be achieved without strong, stable, functional and reliable electricity sector.
He further clarified: “We have relied so much on centralization of our power sector for so long that it is not taking us anywhere”.
“So moving away from centralization, we have decided to adopt the distributed power model to ensure that every Nigerian has access to energy.
“A lot of our population reside in the rural areas, a lot of our institutions-educational and tertiary health institutions are isolated and they are still facing epileptic power supply.
“We have also found out that the adoption of distributed energy model will expand the energy net for our rural dwellers, the rural businesses, our universities and tertiary health institutions. Which is why the focus is on renewable energy which we believe is scalable and can exist in isolation of national grid that is currently facing lots of pressure
“Which is why we have both long-term and medium -term target to achieving net zero carbon emission by year 2060 and also to enable us achieve 30 percent of our energy generation coming from renewable energy by year 2030. So renewable energy is currently a major focus for us in the power sector”, he added.
Speaking earlier, the REA boss reiterated the importance of the ceremony as it is capable of delivering on the Presidential mandate of building local capacity and creating more job opportunities.
He said: “We will track this and ensure the delivery of the commitment within the tenure of the present administration. We will also track the economic factor that this initiative will drive, the level of GDP contribution, the employment opportunities provided and the socio-economic activities that will crystallize”.
According to him, MCC is currently construction of 12 megawatts and three megawatts power plants in Maiduguri and Kaduna, respectively.
In his remarks, the company’s Vice Chairman, Yan Zhezhu, thanked the minister for the government’s commitment to Nigeria’s energy growth.
He expatiated: “We are not new to Nigeria having started in Oyo State a long time ago. Presently, we have ongoing projects in Maiduguri and Kaduna and we appreciate the cooperation we have so far received. Our projects have seen us working with States and the Federal Government in Nigeria and we are committed to do more.”
