President Bola Tinubu says his administration is committed to addressing the obstacles that have prevented Nigeria from achieving a stable electricity supply.
Tinubu made the commitment at the groundbreaking ceremony of the Gwagwalada Independent Power Plant (GIPP) project held in Abuja on Friday.
He said despite the current challenges facing the power sector, his administration is determined to make significant progress in improving electricity access for Nigerians.
“Although the Nigeria Electricity Supply Industry (NESI) is currently characterized by huge supply-gap deficits owing to dilapidated power infrastructure and poor distributions networks, amongst others, this administration is poised to address every power value chain challenge that will significantly relieve the suppressed demand, enhance generation, and improve national peak growth and sustainability far above the hitherto abysmal and unacceptable 5,300MW for over 200 million Nigerians,” Tinubu said.
“During my electioneering campaign, I made a commitment to Nigerians on providing stable electricity.
“This is to be achieved by ensuring that we use all available energy sources to boost power generation beyond the current installed capacity of 12,000 megawatts, strengthening the integrity of our transmission infrastructure and ensuring that all distribution bottlenecks are removed.
“We cannot form the productive and industrialised economy we need in order to conclusively tackle poverty, and create thousands of high-paying manufacturing jobs for our teeming young people, whose creativity and talent we must harness for national development, without reliable electricity.
“We cannot advance and join the rest of the developed world if we remain stuck with our current electricity supply situation and unable to supply the energy our country requires to power a doubling of the size of our gross domestic product (GDP) within the next decade.”
Tinubu further explained that his administration was committed to using gas as a catalyst for sustainable economic development and job creation.
Similarly, Mele Kyari, group chief executive officer of the NNPC, said the company will use Nigeria’s natural gas resources to power industrial growth and create jobs.
He added that the project will also boost the national grid.
Kyari assured the president that NNPC will continue to build power plants to improve energy security, adding that several power plants have already been built, including the 50MW Maiduguri, the 900MW Kaduna, and the 1,300MW Kano power plants.
