Obi Promises To Increase Power Generation To 15,000 MW In Four Years

The presidential candidate of the Labour Party has said he would achieve 15,000 megawatt (MW) of electricity in four years, an ambition no administration has attempted.

He said this on Monday during an interview on Channels TV’s Politics Today.

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

Egypt with a population of 103 million generates over 50,000 MW of electricity.

Obi said, “After the experience of Egypt I decided to go and learn. I visited the power plants to see what they were able to do within those five years. I visited the companies that executed the projects. Held a very useful meeting with the CEO of the company, visited the power holding company of Egypt and other agencies involved to learn what they did.

“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.”

Nigeria generates around 4,000MW, but recently, the country has witnessed six embarrassing national grid collapses.

The Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors had said that the country needs 180,000 megawatts of electricity to have adequate and stable power supply.

But 5,615 megawatts recorded in 2021 was the maximum generated in the country since 1980.

Nigeria’s seven Generation Companies have 10,398.4MW installed capacity, but available capacity is 6,056 MW, according to the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commision.

But Obi said the power situation would improve if the country followed the Egyptian model.

He said, “From the construction companies to the power holding companies and the financiers it can be done here and it is one of the things that I’m totally committed to making a difference of. It is critical because you can’t talk about production without talking about power.

He argued that for every 1,000MW of electricity generated, the country is “probably adding almost 1 per cent to GDP.”

He said it is critical to improve power generation and transmission as “aggressively as possible.”