Femi Otedola, a well-known businessman, has once again criticized Nigeria’s power sector.
Otedola, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Geregu Power Plc, has lamented the country’s generating capacity of 5,000 megawatts.
He claims that the country’s power sector has been struggling to maintain 5,000 megawatts since he was born.
The businessman, who is already 60 years old, believes it is unfortunate that a company like Dangote can build.
How much power is required for cement, fertilizer, and refinery?
WITHIN NIGERIA gathered that Otedola made the observation on Friday at the “Closing Gong ceremony” of the Nigerian Exchange Limited, NGX in Lagos.
He bemoaned that power had not improved since he was born, citing generation as the sector’s main issue.
He noted that several generation plants built by the government years ago are still idle, emphasizing that Nigeria still struggles with 5,000 megawatts of generation capacity.
Otedola advanced that;
Aliko Dangote, an individual, has built 2000 megawatts of power for cement, fertilizer plants and a refinery. And the country where I was born has only 5000 megawatts.
So it’s appalling and disheartening that all the successive governments have failed in this regard, but I believe we are now at the stage where the power sector will get much attention and priority.
We have new plants still sitting idle that the government built years ago, and the real problem is transmission; there is a need to look in this direction.
He was however optimistic that the sector has a future, adding that once part of the problem of the sector which is leadership is solved, the sector has a bright future.
He urged stakeholders, including the federal government, to improve the transmission sector to boost the Nation’s power supply, and that the right hands at the helm of affairs would end the decades-old challenges