The Minister of Power, Bayi Adelabu, has assured Nigerians there would be incremental power supply.
A statement released by Adelabu’s media aide, Bolaji Tunji, on Wednesday, appealed for calm, saying the power sector would soon receive a boost.
The minister‘s assurance comes on the heels of lingering low power supply and the collapse of the national grid on Sunday.
Media reports noted that the electricity supply in the country has worsened in the last one month.
Stakeholders in the sector blamed the low gas supply for the current outage.
“The blackout we have been experiencing is based on the fact that gas supply to the GenCos has reduced and that was due to indebtedness and the minister is looking into it.
His concern is to ensure that we have more regular supply, incremental regular supply of electricity across the nation,” he stated.
According to Tunji, the minister is not promising a miracle because the problems have been in existence over the years, but the government is ready to change the narratives.
He noted, “He is not promising a miracle, but he is saying that there should be incremental supply of electricity, and people would see there is improvement. This is not a problem that came overnight. It has been there over the years.
But he is desirous of making an impact and changing the narratives. It is not that he wants to perform a miracle, but he wants to ensure that we have incremental energy supply across the nooks and crannies of Nigeria.”
Asked to state when the situation would change, the media aide replied, “I won’t be able to commit to any particular time because this is not like a road construction.
It takes planning and a lot of effort. For example, if you want to erect a tower or build a substation, you order the items needed and they are not what you can pick off the shelf.
“It is something that should be planned for. And like the minister had always said, what Nigerians need is to see improvements in power supply and that is the assurance he is giving, that there must be improvements. Definitely, we envisage an improvement.”
He added the lack of gas supplies had impacted power generation negatively, disclosing that a committee would be put in place to address the situation.
“If the DisCos are not supplying enough power, it is because they are not getting enough from the GenCos; and the GenCos could not give them enough because their production has been reduced, based on the fact that they have limited gas supplies.
“The minister is setting up a committee of all stakeholders to look at how to tackle this problem to ensure we don’t have this kind of situation again,” Tunji submitted.
