Former Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo, on Monday told President Mohammadu Buhari, that he would not be able to provide constant electricity for Nigerians without first winning the gas war.

Speaking during an award ceremony in his honour for transforming the power sector, especially, through a successful privatisation programme, he said, not winning the war, had remained one of the darkest points of his tenure and one that remained quite regrettable.

His words: “One thing, and that is my greatest regret, is that we didn’t win the war against vandalism and against inadequate gas supply. I tell you, if President Buhari were to win the gas war today, within two weeks, every Nigerian will be celebrating him, because what President Jonathan has put in place for the power sector, is so immense that within a few weeks, if you get all these turbines fired up, instead of operating on 30 or 40 percent capacity, all of them fired up, every Nigerian will know the difference. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the privilege of winning the gas war.

“And I do think that to win the gas war, Mr. President, will have to do whatever it takes to stem the tide of vandalism of gas and oil pipelines as well as induce producers of gas to produce gas.”

Dwelling extensively on the importance of the privatisation, the former Minister, said it took more than human efforts to pull through, adding that the benefits would be quite great, provided the new administration in the country would recognise such gains and continue to push the programme through.

“When you have this privatisation, people don’t know what has happened. Within this privatisation, Egbin Power Station that has 220megawatts cannot operate because of gas. Ughelli has added over 400megawatts, much of which remains inoperable because of lack of supply of gas. Privatisation alone has brought us to a place where we can comfortably deliver 7,000megawatts to Nigeria if the gas were available. Even in the hydros, a lot of revamping of the hydro turbines has already taken place. So, we all will have to continue to pray.

“It is not that we didn’t succeed. It is just that this gas thing remains a quandary. And I will say that even if President Buhari will declare a gas emergency, Nigerians will see the difference within a week or two. We are only limited by transmission, to make the 6,000megawatts. But we can make the 7,000megawatts if we had the transmission. So, a lot has already happened and we hope that the new administration will continue to make sure that Nigerians reap the benefit of privatisation.”

Nebo, who said that he would not also rest, even as a private citizen to pursue his vision for the sector, argued that embedded power generation remained one of the most robust and effective option for providing constant electricity for the country.

He said: “I want to assure all of you that Nigeria will win the power war. There is no doubt in my mind. We’ve been pushing for embedded power generation. That’s the way to go. Most of these big power plants take years of gestation to realisation. Embedded generation can give you 1,000, 2,000 megawatts whereas the big plants will not give you that in five to six years. We’re pushing for that and we hope that the present administration will continue. And the only way to do embedded generation is through privatisation.

“It can work because all the agricultural clusters, industrial clusters, manufacturing clusters, export trade zones, all of them can be covered by embedded generation, so that Nigeria will leapfrog into industrialisation instead of depending on just the traditional way. There is a Chinese description of insanity that says that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result each time. We cannot continue doing the things we have been doing. We must think outside the box.”