Allow Individuals, Companies Generate Electricity For Nigerians, Obi Tells FG

Peter Obi, Labour Party’s Presidential candidate in the 2023 general election has advised the Nigerian government to learn from countries like South Africa and allow private persons and companies to generate electricity without license.

Obi said in a tweet on Thursday that the country’s power crisis should be treated as national emergency, a move he believes would save businesses from collapsing.

Obi’s suggestion is coming three days after South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, scrapped license rules for private power generators in the country.

“Following an extensive public consultation process and a significant amount of technical work undertaken by the department of mineral resources and energy, we will be amending schedule 2 of the Electricity Regulation Act to increase the Nersa [National Energy Regulator of SA] licensing threshold for embedded generation projects from 1MW to 100MW,” said Ramaposa.

Nigeria has suffered epileptic power supply as national grid collapsed six times in the last seven months. The country generates around 4,000 megawatts.

Obi said, “Private producers will be allowed to build power plants with unlimited capacity without requiring a license, compared with a previous cap of 100 megawatts.

“Nigeria’s epileptic electricity supply remains a matter of deep concern. Although, South Africa, the second biggest economy on the continent has a population of over 60 million, and generates over 50,000 megawatts, her authorities are currently complaining of an energy crisis; thus compelling President Ramaphosa to declare an emergency situation and an intervention policy permitting private persons or corporations to generate up to 100 megawatts without licenses.

“Nigeria, the African giant with over 200 million people, generates a paltry 4,000 megawatts, which is less than 10 per cent of South Africa’s without declaring a power crisis or emergency.

“Nigerians should take a cue from global governance best practices; grasp what people-oriented leadership is all about and rise up for effective change.”

THE WHISTLER had reported that the Labour Party candidate said he would ramp up generations to 15,000 megawatts in four years.

The candidate who had travelled to Egypt in June said he under-studied the dynamics of the country’s power generation adding he met with the companies involved.

He had said, “I also visited the financiers of the project, what they were able to do can easily happen here. And my commitment is that Nigeria will be able to generate, transmit and distribute 15,000MW within a four-year period of a government.

“In Egypt, their target was five years, but when executed, they achieved under three years. It has to be a wholistic thing with everybody’s hands on and followed religiously.”