The present 4,000 megawatts of electricity generated by hydro dams in the country is grossly insufficient for consumption by over 200 million households.
General Manager, Shiroro Transmission, Bala Musa, who gave the hint while speaking to The Guardian on the rationale behind the constant grid collapse, revealed that the challenges confronting the power sector were issues of vandalism by bad Nigerians.
While highlighting the functions of the sector, he noted that the power sector had been separated into three components namely, generation, transmission and distribution, pointing out that the generation and distribution aspects had been privatised. Musa said transmission is the only Federal Government asset in the power chain.
“The way we used to live before when power was under the Federal Government is not the way we are now under privatisation policy. Private individuals are there to make profit,” Bala said.
He however maintained that the power sector needed to be worked upon, which required enough funds. Bala had lamented that the privatisation started on a very sad note, saying in some years to come, Nigeria would still struggle to overcome the challenges of power supply..
According to him, over 200 million population cannot be using only 4,000mw of electricity. “That is why most of the factories and industries that are supposed to be in Nigeria have left for other destinations, leading to youth unemployment.
“To bring back the lost glory of Nigeria that was known in the 1970s, we should work on the power sector. We need more generation, more transmission lines as well as more distribution equipment. Then the citizenry should be patriotic to be paying electricity bills. With these, supply will improve,” he added.
