President Bola Tinubu has decried Nigeria’s current rate of energy supply, saying the country cannot advance and join the rest of the developed countries if it remains stuck with the current electricity supply.

Tinubu, however, said his administration is poised to address all the obstacles militating against stable electricity supply in the country.

The president said his administration will bring solutions to the multifarious challenges across the electric power sector value chain which will significantly relieve longstanding problems of suppressed demand and improve the steadiness of peak supply for Nigerians.

He stated that improved energy generation and distribution is an imperative for accelerated national growth.

The president said this at the ground breaking ceremony of the new 350MW Gwagwalada Independent Thermal Power Plant (Phase 1) in Abuja on Friday, August 4, 2023.

President Tinubu said: “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 noted that a swift improvement in the stability and quantum of energy supply will enhance national economic development, which remains a cardinal priority of his administration.

He added: “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.

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“We can not 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.”

Tinubu affirmed that adequate energy, broadly, and electricity, specifically, is to be treated as the topmost national economic imperative, if Nigeria must develop and maximise her human and natural resources, saying: “To accelerate our economic growth, we must work hard to remove every obstacle that has slowed down our progress. I have often said that electricity is the greatest human invention of the last 1,000 years.

“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 within the next decade.”

The president, who expressed his excitement that the landmark project was commencing at the onset of his administration, said: “The groundbreaking for the Gwagwalada thermal power plant (Phase 1) is highly significant to the nation, as it marks the first bold step and the beginning of the administration’s concerted efforts to entrench a strong and virile energy foundation for uninterrupted power supply to boost the economy and accelerate industrial growth.

“The Gwagwalada 350MW (Phase 1) project is part of an incremental 3,600MW cumulative power project that is based on market-driven designs along the Abuja, Kaduna and Kano (AKK) gas pipeline corridors, which will further underpin the project’s economic viability while generating multiple foreign direct investments (FDIs) for the nation.”

President Tinubu further promised to harness the nation’s gas resources, assuming that “this administration will latch onto the global declaration of gas as a ‘transition fuel’ and the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) to enhance investments in the oil and gas sector to fully harness the more than 200 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of proven gas reserves which are expected to deepen domestic gas utilization through improved power generation, establishment of gas-based industries, petrochemical firms, as well as liquified/compressed natural gas (auto-gas) development to catalyze sustainable economic development while creating millions of jobs for the teeming Nigerian populace.”

While commending the NNPCL for leveraging on the established AKK Gas pipeline through this laudable project, President Tinubu charged the NNPCL to ensure the prompt and early completion of the project saying: “While planning this project, the prudent use of resources has been given top priority, as by this endeavor, Nigeria will strategically underpin the commerciality of the multi-billion dollar AKK gas pipeline, even as we evolve a competitive low-power tariff structure and revitalize numerous industries that will create millions of direct and indirect jobs.”

Also speaking at the event, the Group Chief Executive Officer of the NNPCL, Mele Kyari, stated that the company will leverage on the nation’s endowment of gas resources to power the nation’s industrial growth and stimulate ubiquitous job creation, adding that through the project, the NNPCL would be providing a huge boost to the national grid.

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Kyari assured President Tinubu that the NNPCL will continue to execute power projects to enhance energy security, noting that several of such have already been completed.

These, according to the NNPCL boss, include the 50MW Maiduguri Power Plant, and the 900MW and 1,300MW power plants in Kaduna and Kano, respectively.

Others at the event were Borno State Governor, Prof. Babagana Zulum, the Chinese Ambassador to Nigeria, and government officials, among others.

The Star