October 24, 2017

The Executive Director, Research and Advocacy of the Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors has suggested that public officers responsible for providing power should be banned from using generators.

Mr Sunday Oduntan, who made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Tuesday said that the measure was necessary to compel the public officers to live up to expectations in doing their jobs.

Oduntan said that top government functionaries, including the minister of power and other agencies in the power sector should be disallowed from using generators at their homes and offices to make them find lasting solutions to the endemic power problem.

“I believe that Nigeria has reached a point when all of us, including investors in the power sector should be banned from using generators.

“If the minister of power, permanent secretary and investors in the power sector are banned from using generators, I believe we will come together and fix the problem once and for all.

“My personal opinion is that as long as we continue to have alternatives to this problem, power failure will persist.”

The executive director expressed his fears that the nation would continue to grapple with unstable power supply until an appropriate pricing of electricity tariff was fixed.

“We have failed to recognise the fact that electricity is a product and the product comes with a cost.

“Distribution companies cannot continue to buy a kilowatt of energy for N68 and sell to consumers at N31.58 and expect a magic wand.

‘‘There won’t be meters, transformers and electricity supply as well, unless we have a cost reflective tariff.

“When the sector was privatised in 2013, the government in power promised a cost reflective tariff among others but unfortunately they have not fulfilled it.”

Oduntan also called for equal treatment of all stakeholders in all chains of distribution of power, saying that this would assist in solving some challenges confronting the sector.

“You cannot treat one and leave the other, they all go with one another,” he said.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation has spent billions of dollars on energy but the nation has remained largely in darkness.