By Ayo Yusuf
As Nigerians continue to rue the epileptic power supply that has been the bane of businesses in the country, the Minister of Power, Bayo Adelabu, has disclosed efforts by the Federal Government to generate 20,000 megawatts of electricity by 2026 and 60,000MW by 2060.
The minister revealed this in Osogbo, Osun State capital during his visit to the National Control Centre of the Transmission Company of Nigeria on Friday.
A former deputy governor of operations at the Central Bank of Nigeria, Chief Adelabu unveiled the short and long term plans of the ministry towards increasing power generation, transmission and distribution in Nigeria.
He said, “Like I told you, it’s an aspiration for Nigeria to have a minimum of 60,000 megawatts of power by 2060; that is 60 gigawatts. And 2030 is the medium term objective of achieving 30,000 megawatts of power.
“But like I mentioned in one of the programmes I attended, in as much as we are on course in achieving this, given the experiences of other countries who are even able to achieve over 100,000 megawatts within 40 to 50 years, this is not an ambitious target for Nigeria, we can easily achieve it.
“We have target for transmission capacity, we have target for distribution capacity and we have target for power generation capacity. By 2026, we should be able to achieve 20,000 megawatts of electricity.”
The minister added that two more power substations would come up in the next few months, courtesy of the presidential power initiative of the federal government.
Chief Adelabu who revealed that a panel has been set up to investigate what caused the inferno at the power substation of the TCN in Birnin Kebbi which led to the recent collapse of the National Electricity Grid warned that any employee found sabotaging the efforts of the government in the power sector would be made to face the music.
Recently the African Development Bank has announced plans to disburse $250 million into the Nigeria Electrification Project, NEP.
Minister Adelabu said the project seeks to bridge the energy access deficit by providing electricity to households, MSMEs, and educational and healthcare facilities in unserved and underserved rural communities.
Chief Adelabu had shared this update on X (formerly known as Twitter), noting that it underscores the fruitful outcome of a productive Bilateral Cooperation meeting held on the sidelines of an Energy Transition and Agricultural Transformation for Africa conference held in Busan, South Korea.
This gathering, presided over by AfDB President, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, brought together key stakeholders to discuss pivotal energy and agricultural transformations for the African continent.
The Minister tweeted, “This initiative aims to establish operational capacity across the entire value chain, facilitating project prioritization. AfDB also confirmed readiness to disburse a previously approved $ 250 million fund for the Nigeria Electrification Project under the Rural Electrification Agency and extended support to Northern Nigerian states through the $ 20 billion 10,000MW Northern Africa Desert to Power fund.
Over 600,000 people, approximately 100,000 households, 70,000 MSMEs, and eight universities will receive new or improved access to electricity services as a result of the project.
“It will also create an enabling environment for private sector involvement, with a particular focus on advancing opportunities for women through various integrated activities such as the collection of sex-disaggregated data and gender-targeted marketing,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Energy Progress Report 2022, released by Tracking SDG 7, has revealed that Nigeria has the lowest access to electricity globally, with approximately 92 million out of the country’s 200 million population lacking access to power.
